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THE  LIBRARY 
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HUMBOLDT    LIBRARY.    [No.  43. 


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DjlRWIN  Af  HUMBOLDT; 


THEIR  LIVES  AND  WORK. 


CHARLES  DARWIN. 


I.  INTRODUCTORY  NOTICE. 


BY    PROr 


IIUXLEY,    F.R.S. 


Very  few,  even  among  tho.'^e  wlio 
lave  taken  the  keenest  interest  in  the 
)rogress  of  the  revolution  in  natural 
tnowledge  set  afoot  by  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Or'ujin  of  Species,  and 
'who  have  watched,  not  without  as- 
tonishment, the  rapid  and  complete 
change  which  h&s  been  effected  both 
inside  and  outside  the  boundaries  of 
the  scientific  world  in  the  attitude  of 
men's  minds  toward  the  doctrines 
which  are  expounded  in  that  great 
work,  can  have  been  prepared  for  the 
extraordir^ary  manifestation  of  affec- 
tionate regard  for  the  man,  and  of 
profound  reverence  for  the  philoso- 
pher, which  followed  the  announce- 
ment of  the  death  of  Mr.  Darwin. 


Not  only  in  these  islands,  where  so 
many  have  felt  the  fascination  of 
personal  contact  with  an  intellect 
which  had  no  superior,  and  with  a 
character  which  was  even  nobler  than 
the  intellect ;  but,  in  all  parts  of  the 
civilized  world,  it  would  seem  that 
those  whose  business  it  is  to  feel  the 
pulse  of  nations  and  to  know  what 
interests  the  masses  of  mankind,  were 
well  aware  that  thousands  of  their 
readers  would  think  the  world  the 
poorer  for  Darwin's  death,  and  would 
dwell  with  eager  interest  upon  every 
incident  of  his  history.  In  France, 
in  Germany,  in  Austro-Hungary,  in 
Italy,  in  the  United  States,  writers  of 
all  shades  of  opinion,  for  once  unani- 
mous, have  paid  a  willing  tribute  to 
the  worth  of  our  great  countryman, 
ignored  in  life  by  the  ofHcial  represen- 
tatives of  the   kingdom,  but  laid  in. 


535507 


2  [306] 


DARWIN   AND   HUMBOLDT. 


death  among  his  peers  in  Westminster 
Abbey  by  the  will  of  the  intelligence 
of  the  nation. 

It  is  not  for  us  to  allude  to  the 
sacred  sorrows  of  the  bereaved  home 
at  Down ;  but  it  is  no  secret  that, 
outside  that  domestic  group,  there 
are  many  to  whom  Mr.  Daiiwin's 
deatli  is  a  wholly  irreparable  loss. 
And  this  not  merely  because  of  his 
wonderfully  genial,  simple,  and  gener- 
ous nature;  hischeerfiil  and  animated 
conversation,  and  the  infinite  variety 
and  accuracy  of  his  information  ;  but 
because  the  more  one  knew  of  him, 
the  more  he  seemed  the  incorporated 
ideal  of  a  man  of  science.  Acute  as 
were  his  reasoning  powers,  vast  as 
was  his  knowledge,  marvelous  as  was 
his  tenacious  industry,  under  physical 
difficulties  which  would  have  convert- 
ed nine  men  out  of  ten  into  aimless 
invalids  ;  it  was  not  these  qualities, 
great  as  they  were,  which  impressed 
those  who  were  admitted  to  his  inti- 
macy with  involuntary  veneration, 
but  a  certain  intense  and  almost  pas- 
sionate honesty  by  which  all  his 
thoughts  and  actions  were  irradiated, 
as  by  a  central  fire. 

It  was  this  rarest  and  greatest  of 
endowments  which  kept  his  vivid 
imagination  and  great  speculative 
powers  within  due  bounds ;  which 
compelled  him  to  undertake  the  pro- 
digious labors  of  original  investiga- 
tion and  of  reading,  u]>on  which  his 
published  works  are  based;  which 
made  him  accept  criticisms  and 
suggestions  from  any  body  and  every 
body,  not  only  without  impatience, 
but  with  expressions  of  gratitude 
sometimes  almost  comically  in  excess 
of  their  value ;  which  led  him  to 
allow  neither  himself  nor  others  to  be 
deceived  by  phrases,  and  to  spare 
ncillicr  time  nor  pains  in  order  to 
obtain  clear  and  distinct  ideas  u])on 
every  topic  with  which  he  occupied 
hinihclf. 

One  could  not  converse  with  Dar- 
win wiUicut  being  reminded  of  So- 
crates. There  was  the  same  desire 
to  find  some  one  wiser  than  himself ; 
the  same  belief  in  the  sovereignty  of 


reason  ;  the  same  ready  humor ;  the 
same  sympathetic  interest  in  all  the 
ways  and  works  of  men  But  instead 
of  turning  away  from  the  problems 
of  nature  as  hopelessly  insoluble,  our 
modern  Philosopher  devoted  his 
whole  life  to  attacking  them  in  the 
spirit  of  Heuacutus  and  of  De- 
MocRiTUs,  with  results  which  are  as 
the  substance  of  which  their  specula- 
tion Avere  anticipatory  shadows. 

The  due  appreciation  or  even 
enumeration  of  these  results  is  neither 
j)racticable  nor  desirable  at  this  mo- 
ment. There  is  a  time  for  all  things 
— a  time  for  glorying  in  our  ever- 
extending  conquests  over  the  realm" 
of  nature,  and  a  time  for  mourning 
over  the  heroes  who  have  led  us  to 
victory. 

None  have  fought  better,  and  none 
have  been  more  fortunate,  than 
Chari.ks  Darwin.  He  found  a 
great  truth  trodden  under  foot,  re- 
viled by  bigots,  and  ridiculed  by  all 
the  world ;  he  lived  long  enough 
to  see  it,  chiefly  by  his  own  efforts, 
irrefragably  established  in  science, 
insei)arably  incorporated  with  the 
common  thoughts  of  men,  and  only 
hated  and  feared  by  those  who  would 
revile,  but  dare  not.  What  shall  a 
man  more  desire  than  this?  Once 
more  the  image  of  Socrates  rises  un- 
bidden, and  the  noble  peroration  of 
the  Apology  rings  in  our  ears  as  if  it 
were  Chari.es  Darwin's  farewell : 

"The  hour  of  departure  has  ar- 
rived, and  we  go  our  ways — I  to  die, 
and  you  to  live.  Which  is  the  better, 
God  only  knows." 


II.  CHARACTER  AND  LIFE. 


BY    Ct.    .J.    ROMANES,  F.R.S. 


The  object  of  this  notice  is  to  gire 
a  brief  account  of  the  life,  and  a  pro- 
portionately still  more  brief  account 
of  the  M'ork  of  Mr.  Darwin,  But 
while  we  recognize  in  him  perhaps  the 
greatest  genius  and  the  most  fertile 
thinker,  certainly  the  most  important 
generalizer  and   one   of  the  few  most 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[307]  3 


auccessf  111  observers  in  the  whole  histo 
ry  of  biological  science,  we  feel  that 
no  less  great,  or  even  greater  than  the 
wonderful  intellect  was  the  character 
of  the  man.  Therefore  it  is  in  his 
case  particularly  and  pre-eminently 
true  that  the  first  duty  of  biographers 
will  be  to  render  some  idea,  not  of 
what  he  did,  but  of  what  he  was.  And 
this,  unfortunately,  is  just  the  point 
where  all  his  biographers  must  nec- 
essarily fail.  For  while  to  those 
favored  few  who  were  on  terms  of 
intimate  friendship  with  him,  any 
language  by  which  it  is  sought  to 
portray  his  character  must  seem 
inadequate,  to  every  one  else  the  same 
language  must  appear  the  result  of 
enthusiastic  admiration,  finding  vent 
in  extravagant  panegyric.  Whatever 
is  great  and  whatever  is  beautiful  in 
human  nature  found  in  him  so  lux- 
uriant a  development,  that  no  place  or 
chance  M-as  left  for  any  other  growth, 
and  in  the  result  we  beheld  a  magnifi- 
cence which,  unless  actually  realized, 
we  should  scarcely  have  been  able  to 
imagine.  Any  attempt,  therefore,  to 
describe  such  a  character  must  be 
much  like  an  attempt  to  describe  a 
splendid  })iece  of  natural  scenciry  or  a 
marvelous  work  of  art;  the  thing 
must  itself  have  been  seen,  if  any  de- 
scription of  it  is  to  be  understood. 

But  without  attempting  to  describe 
Mr.  Daravin's  character,  if  v-:e  were 
asked  to  indicate  the  features  which 
stood  out  with  most  marked  prom- 
inence, we  should  first  mention  those 
which,  from  being  conspicuous  in 
liis  writings,  are  already  more  or  less 
known  to  all  the  world.  Thus,  the 
absorbing  desire  to  seek  out  truth  for 
truth's  sake,  combined  with  a  clinr- 
ucLeristic  disregard  of  self,  led  not 
only  to  the  caution,  patience,  and 
<;andor  of  his  own  work — which  are 
proverbial — and  to  the  generous  sat- 
isfaction which  he  felt  on  finding 
any  of  his  thoughts  or  results  inde- 
pendently attained  by  the  work  of 
others ;  but  also  to  a  keen  and  vivid 
freshness  of  interest  in  every  detail 
of  a  new  research,  such  as  we  have 
sometimes  seen  approached  by  much 


younger  men  when  the  research 
happens  to  have  been  their  own.  And 
indeed  what  we  may  call  this  fervid 
youthfulness  of  feeling  extended 
through  all  Mr.  Darwin's  mind,  giv- 
ing, in  combination  with  his  immense 
knowledge  and  massive  sagacity,  an 
indescribable  charm  to  his  manner 
and  conversation.  Animated  and 
fond  of  humor,  his  wit  was  of  a 
singularly  fascinating  kind,  not  only 
because  it  was  always  brilliant  and 
amusing,  but  still  more  because  it 
was  always  hearty  and  good-natured. 
Indeed,  he  was  so  exquisitely  refined 
in  his  own  feelings,  and  so  almost 
painfully  sensitive  to  any  display  of 
questionable  taste  in  otliers,  that  he 
could  not  help  showing  in  his  humor, 
as  in  the  warp  and  woof  of  his  whole 
nature,  that  in  him  the  man  of  science 
and  the  philosopher  were  subordinate 
to  the  gentleman.  His  courteous  con- 
sideration of  others,  also,  which  went 
far  beyond  anything  that  the  ordinary 
usages  of  society  require,  was  simi- 
larly prompted  by  his  mere  spontane- 
ous instinct  of  benevolence. 

For  who  can  always  act  ?  but  he, 
To  whom  a  thousand  memories  call 
Not  being  less  but  more  than  all 

The  gentleness  he  seemed  to  be, 

Best  seem'dthe  thing  he  was,  and  joiu'd 
Each  oftice  of  the  social  hour 
To  noble  manners,  as  the  flower 

And  native  growth  of  noble  mind  ; 

Nor  ever  narrowness  or  spite, 
Or  villain  fancy  fleeting  by, 
Drew  in  the  expression  of  an  eye. 

Where  God  and  nature  met  in  light. 

And  this  leads  us  to  speak  of  his 
kindness,  which,  whether  we  look  to 
its  depth  or  to  its  width,  must  certain- 
ly be  regarded  as  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  feature  of  his  remarkable 
disposition.  The  genuine  delight 
that  he  took  in  helping  every  one  in 
their  work — often  at  the  cost  of  much 
personal  trouble  to  himself — in  throw- 
in":  out  numberless  sufji^estions  for 
Others  to  profit  by,  and  in  kindling 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  humblest  tyro 
in  science ;  this  was  the  outcome  of 
a  great  and  generous   heart,  quite  as 


4  [308] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


much  as  it  was  clue  to  a  desire  for  the 
advancement  of  science.  Nothing 
seemed  to  give  him  a  keener  joy  than 
being  able  to  write  to  any  of  his 
friends  a  warm  and  glowing  congratu- 
lation upon  their  gaining  some  success; 
and  the  exuberance  of  his  feelings  on 
such  occa.ssions  generally  led  him  to 
conceive  a  much  higher  estimate  of 
the  imi>ortance  of  the  results  attained 
than  he  would  have  held  had  the  suc- 
cess been  achieved  by  himself.  For 
the  modesty  with  which  he  regarded 
his  own  work  was  no  less  remarkable 
than  his  readiness  enthusiastically  to 
admire  the  work  of  others  ;  so  that, 
to  any  one  who  did  not  know  him 
well,  this  extreme  modesty,  from  its 
very  completeness  and  unconscious- 
ness, might  almost  have  appeared  the 
result  of  affectation.  At  least,  speak- 
ing for  ourselves,  when  we  tirst  met 
him,  and  happened  to  see  him  convers- 
ing with  a  greatly  younger  man, 
quite  unknown  either  in  science  or 
literature,  we  thought  it  must  have 
been  impossible  that  Mr.  Darwin — 
then  the  law  giver  to  the  world  of 
biology — could  with  honest  sincerity 
be  submitting,  in  the  way  he  did,  his 
matured  thought  to  the  judgment  of 
such  a  youth.  But  afterward  we 
came  fully  to  learn  that  no  one  was 
so  unconscious  of  Mr.  Darwin's 
worth  as  Mr.  Darwin  himself,  and 
that  it  was  a  fixed  habit  of  his  mind 
to  seek  for  opinions  as  well  as  facts 
from  every  available  quarter.  It 
must  be  added,  however,  that  his 
tendency  to  go  beyond  the  Scriptural 
injunction  in  the  matter  of  self- 
approval,  and  to  think  of  others  more 
highly  than  he  ought  to  think,  never 
clouded  his  final  judgment  upon  the 
value  of  their  opinions ;  but  spontane- 
ously following  another  of  these  in- 
junctions, while  proving  all  things,  he 
held  fast  only  to  that  which  was 
good.  "  In  malice  be  ye  children, 
but  in  understanding  be  ye  men." 

On  the  whole,  then,  we  should  say 
that  Mr.  Darwin's  character  was 
chiefly  marked  by  a  certain  grand  and 
cheerful  simplicity,  strangely  and 
beautifully  united  with  a  deep    and 


thoughtful  wisdom,  which,  together 
with  his  illimitable  kindness  to  others 
and  complete  forgetfulness  of  him- 
self, made  a  combination  as  lovable 
as  it  was  venerable.  It  is,  therefore, 
not  to  be  wondered  at  that  no  man 
ever  passed  away  leaving  behind  him 
a  greater  void  of  enmity,  or  a  depth 
of  adoring  friendship  more  profound. 

But,  as  we  have  said,  it  is  im- 
possible to  convey  in  words  any 
adequate  conception  of  a  character 
which  in  beauty  as  in  grandeur  can 
only,  with  all  sobriety,  be  called 
sublime.  If  the  generations  are  ever 
to  learn,  with  any  approach  to  accu- 
racy, what  Mr.  Darwin  was,  his  biog- 
raphers may  best  teach  them  by 
allowing  this  most  extraordinary 
man  to  speak  for  himself  through  the 
medium  of  his  correspondence,  as 
well  as  through  that  of  his  books; 
and  therefore,  as  a  small  foretaste  of 
the  complete  biography  which  will 
some  day  appear,  we  shall  quote  a 
letter  in  which  he  describes  the  char- 
acter of  his  great  friend  and  teacher, 
the  late  Prof.  Henslow,  of  Cambridge. 
We  choose  this  letter  to  quote  from 
on  account  of  the  singular  manner  in 
which  the  writer,  while  describing 
the  character  of  another,  is  uncon- 
sciously giving  a  most  accurate  de- 
scription of  his  own.  It  is  of  im- 
portance also  that  in  any  biographical 
history  of  Mr.  Darwin,  Professor 
IIensi.ow's  character  should  be  duly 
considered,  seeing  that  he  exerted  sa 
great  an  influence  upon  the  expanding 
powers  of  Mr.  Darwin's  miu<l.  We 
quote  the  letter  from  the  Rev.  L. 
Jknyns's  Memoir  of  the  late  Prof. 
JJenMow. 

"I  went  to  Cambridge  early  in  the 
year  1828,  and  soon  became  acquaint- 
ed, through  some  of  my  brother 
entomologists,  with  Prof.  IIknsi.ow, 
for  all  who  cared  for  any  branch  of 
natural  history  were  equally  en- 
couraged by  him.  Nothing  could  be 
more  simple,  cordial,  and  unpretend- 
ing than  the  encouragement  which 
he  afforded  to  all  young  naturalists. 
I  soon  became  intimate  with  him,  for 
he  had  a  remarkable   power  of  mak- 


DARWIN  AND   HUMBOLDT 


[309] 


ing  the  young  feel  completely  at  ease 
with  him,  though  we  were  all  awe- 
struck Avith  the  amount  of  liis  knowl- 
edge. Before  I  saw  him,  I  heard 
one  young  man  sum  up  his  attain- 
ments by  simply  saying  that  he 
knew  everything.  When  I  reflect 
how  immediately  we  felt  at  perfect 
ease  with  a  man  older,  and  in  every 
way  so  immensely  our  superior,  I  think 
it  was  as  much  owing  to  the  trans- 
parent sincerity  of  his  character  as  to 
his  kindness  of  heart,  and  perhaps 
even  still  more  to  a  highly  remarkable 
absence  in  him  of  all  self -conscious- 
ness. We  perceived  at  once  that  he 
never  thought  of  his  own  varied 
knowledge  or  clear  intellect,  but  sole- 
ly on  the  subject  in  liand.  Another 
charm,  which  must  have  struck  every 
one,  was  that  his  manner  to  a  distin- 
guished j)erson  and  to  the  youngest 
student  was  exactly  the  same  :  to  all, 
the  same  winning  courtesy.  He 
would  receive  with  interest  the  most 
trifling  observation  in  any  branch  of 
natural  history,  and  liowever  absurd 
a  blunder  one  might  make,  he  pointed 
it  out  so  clearly  and  kindly  that  one 
left  him  in  no  way  disheartened,  but 
only  determined  to  be  more  accurate 
the  next  time.  So  that  no  man 
could  be  better  formed  to  win  the 
entire  confidence  of  the  young  and 
to  encourage  them  in  their  pursuits.  . . 

"  During  the  years  when  I  associa- 
ted so  much  with  Prof.  IIenslow,  I 
never  once  saw  his  temper  even  ruf- 
fled. He  never  took  an  ill  natured 
view  of  any  one's  cliaracter,  tliough 
very  far  from  blind  to  the  foibles  of 
others.  It  always  btruck  me  that  his 
mind  could  not  be  well  touched  by 
any  paltry  feeling  of  envy,  vanity, 
or  jealousy.  With  all  this  equability 
of  temper,  and  remarkable  benev- 
olence, there  was  no  insipidity  of 
character.  A  man  must  have  been 
blind  not  to  have  ])erceived  that 
beneath  this  placid  exterior  there  was 
a  vigorous  and  determined  will. 
When  principle  came  into  play,  no 
power  on  earth  could  have  turned 
him  an  hair's  breadth.  .   .   . 

"In    intellect,  as   far    as    I    could 


judge,  accurate  powers  of  observation, 
sound  sense,  and  cautious  judgment 
seemed  to  predominate.  Nothing 
seemed  to  give  him  so  much  enjoy- 
ment as  drawing  conclusions  from 
minute  observations.  But  his  admi- 
rable memoir  on  the  geology  of 
Anglesea  shows  his  capacity  for  ex- 
tended observations  and  broad  views. 
Reflecting  over  his  character  with 
gi-atitude  and  reverence,  his  moral 
attributes  rise,  as  they  should  do  in 
the  highest  characters,  in  pre-emi- 
nence, over  his  intellect." 

Ohari.ks  Robert  Darwin  was 
born  at  Shrewsbury  on  Fel»ruary  12, 
1809.  His  father  was  Dr.  R.  W. 
Darwin,  F.R.S.,  a  physician  of  emi- 
nence, who,  as  his  son  used  frequently 
to  remark,  ha<l  a  Avonderful  j)ovver  of 
diagnosing  diseases,  both  bodily  and 
mental,  by  the  aid  of  the  fewest 
possible  questions ;  and  liis  quick- 
ness of  ])erception  was  such  thai  he 
could  even  divine,  in  a  remarkable 
manner,  what  was  passing  through 
his  patients'  minds.  That,  like  his 
son,  he  was  benevolently  inclined, 
may  be  inferred  from  a  little  anecdote 
which  we  once  heard  Mr.  Darwin 
tell  of  him  while  speaking  of  the 
curious  \kinds  of  pride  which  are 
sometimes  shown  by  the  poor.  For 
the  benefit  of  the  district  in  which  he 
lived  Dr.  Darwin  offered  to  dispense 
medicines  gratis  to  any  one  who  ap- 
})lied  and  was  not  able  to  pay.  He 
was  surprised  to  find  that  very  few 
of  the  sick  poor  availed  themselves 
of  his  offer,  and  guessing  that  the 
reason  must  have  been  a  dislike  to 
becoming  the  recipients  of  charity, 
he  devised  a  plan  to  neutralize  this 
feeling.  Whenever  any  poor  persons 
applied  for  medical  aid,  he  told  them 
that  he  Avould  supply  the  medicine, 
but  that  they  must  ])ay  for  the  bottles. 
This  little  distinction  made  all  the 
difference,  and  ever  afterward  the 
poor  used  to  flock  to  the  doctor's  house 
for  relief  as  a  matter  of  right. 

Mr.  Darwin's  mother  was  a  daugh- 
ter of  JosiAH  Wkdgwood.  Little 
is  at  present  known  concerning  his 
early    life,   and    it    is    questionable 


e  [sio] 


DAKWIN   AND   HUMBOLDT. 


whether  we  can  hope  to  learn  much 
with  reference  to  his  boyhood  or 
youth,  till  the  time  when  he  entered 
at  Edinburgh.  We  can,  therefore, 
only  say  that  he  went  to  Shrewsbury 
School,  the  head  master  of  which  was 
at  that  time  Dr.  Buri.EU,  afterward 
Bishop  of  Lichfield.  He  was  sent  to 
Edinburgh  (1825)  because  it  was  in- 
tended that  he  should  follow  his 
father's  profession,  and  Edinburgh 
was  then  the  best  medical  school  m 
the  kingdom.  He  studied  under 
Prof  Jameson,  but  does  not  seem 
to  have  }>rofited  at  all  by  whatever 
instruction  he  received  ;  for  not  only 
did  it  fail  to  awaken  in  liim  any 
special  love  of  natural  history,  but 
even  seems  to  have  had  the  contrary 
effect. 

The  prospect  of  being  a  medical 
practitioner  proving  distasteful  to 
him,  he  was,  after  two  sessions  at 
Edinburgh,  removed  to  Christ's  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  with  the  view  of 
his  entering  the  Church.  He  took 
his  B.A.  in  1831,  and  his  M.A.  in 
1887.  There  being  no  Natural  Sci- 
ences Tripos  at  that  time,  his  degree 
was  an  ordinary  one.  While  at 
Cambridge  he  attracted  the  notice  of 
the  late  Rev.  Prof.  Henslow,  who 
had  just  previously  exchanged  the 
Professorship  of  Mineralogy  for  that 
of  Botany.  From  the  above  de- 
scription of  tliis  man's  character  and 
attainments,  it  is  sulficiently  evident 
that  he  was  a  worthy  teacher  of  a 
worthy  pupil ;  and  the  world  owes 
an  immense  debt  of  gratitude  to  hJm 
for  having  been  the  means  of  enthu- 
siastically arousing  and  sagaciously 
directing  the  first  love  and  the  early 
study  of  natural  science  in  the  mind 
of  Dauwin.  No  one  can  be  more 
deeply  moved  by  a  sense  of  this 
gratitude  than  was  Mr.  Darwin  him- 
self. His  letters,  written  to  Prof. 
Henslow  during  his  voyage  round 
the  world,  overflow  with  feelings  of 
affection,  veneration,  and  obligation 
to  his  accomplished  master  and 
dearest  friend  —  feelings  which 
throughout  his  life  he  retained  with 
undiminished  intensity.     As  he  used 


himself  to  say,  before  he  knew  Prof. 
Henslow,  the  only  objects  of  natu- 
ral history  for  which  he  cared  were 
foxes  and  partridges.  But  owing  to 
the  impulse  wliich  he  derived  from 
the  field  excursions  of  the  Hensi-ow 
class,  he  became  while  at  Cambridge 
an  ardent  collector,  especially  in  the 
region  of  entomology ;  and  we  re- 
member having  heard  him  observe 
that  the  first  time  he  ever  saw  his 
own  name  in  print  was  in  connection 
with  the  capture  of  an  insect  in  the 
fens. 

During  one  of  the  excursions 
Prof.  Henslow  told  him  that  he  had 
been  commissioned  (through  Prof. 
Peacock)  to  offer  any  competent 
young  naturalist  the  opportunity  of 
accompanying  Captain  Fitzroy  as  a 
guest  on  the  surveying  voyage  of  the 
J^eagle,  and  that  he  would  strongly 
urge  its  acceptance  on  him.  Mr. 
Darwix  had  already  formed  riesire 
to  travel,  having  been  stimulated 
thereto  by  reading  Humboldt's  Per- 
sonal  Narrative  y  so  after  a  short 
hesitation  on  the  part  of  his  father, 
who  feared  that  the  voyage  might 
"unsettle"  him  for  the  Church,  the 
matter  was  soon  decided,  and  in  De« 
cemberof  1838  the  expedition  started. 
Daring  the  voyage  he  suffered  greatly 
from  sea-sickness,  Avhich,  together 
with  the  f.asting  and  fatigue  incident- 
al to  long  excursions  over-land,  was 
probably  instrumental  in  producing 
the  dyspepsia  to  which,  during  the 
remainder  of  his  life,  he  was  a  victim. 
Three  years  after  returning  from  thia 
voyage  of  circumnavigation,  he  mar- 
ried, and  in  1842  settled  at  Down,  in 
Kent.  The  work  which  afterward 
emanated  from  that  quiet  and  happy 
English  home,  which  continued  up  to 
the  day  of  his  death,  and  which  has^ 
been  more  effectual  than  any  other  ia 
making  the  nineteenth  century  illus- 
trious, will  form  the  subject  of  our 
subsequent  articles. 


DARWIN   AND   HUiMBOLDT. 


L^ll]  7 


III.  WORK  IN  GEOLOGY. 


BT    ARCHIBALD  GEIKIE,  F.R.S. 

No  man  of  his  time  has  exercised 
upon  the  science  of  Geology  a  pro 
founder  influence  than  Charles  Dar- 
win. At  an  early  period  of  his  life 
he  look  much  interest  in  geological 
studies,  and  in  later  years,  while  en- 
gaged in  other  pursuits,  he  kept  him 
self  accpuiinted  with  the  progress  that 
was  being  made  in  this  department 
of  natural  knowledge.  His  influence 
upon  it  has  been  twofold,  arising 
partly  from  the  importance  and  orig- 
inality of  some  of  his  own  contribu- 
tions to  the  literature  of  the  science, 
but  chiefly  from  the  bearing  of  his 
work  on  other  branches  of  natural 
history. 

When  he  began  to  direct  his  atten- 
tion to  geological  inquiry  the  sway  of 
the  Cataclysmal  school  of  geology 
was  still  paramount.  But  already 
the  Uniformitarians  were  gathering 
strength,  and,  before  many  years 
were  past,  had  ranged  themselves  un- 
der the  banner  of  their  great  champion, 
Lteli  .  Darwix,  who  always  re- 
cognized his  indebtedness  to  Lyell's 
teaching,  gave  a  powerful  impulse  to 
its  general  reception  by  the  way  in 
which  he  gathered  from  all  ]>arts  of 
the  world  facts  in  its  support.  He 
continually  sought  in  the  phenomena 
of  the  pi-esent  time  the  explanation  of 
those  of  the  past.  Yet  he  was  all  the 
while  laying  the  foundation  on  which 
the  later  or  Evolutional  school  of 
geology  has  been  built  up. 

Darwin'  s  specially  geological  mem- 
oirs are  not  numerous,  nor  have  they 
been  of  the  same  epoch-making  kind 
as  his  biological  researches.  But 
every  one  of  tliera  bears  the  stamp 
of  his  marvelous  acuteness  in  observa- 
tion, his  sagacity  in  grouping  scatter- 
ed facts,  and  his  unrivalled  far- 
reaching  vision  that  commanded  all 
their  mutual  bearings,  as  well  as  their 
place  in  the  general  economy  of  things. 
His  long  travels  in  the  Beagle  afford- 
ed him  opportunities  of  making  him- 1 


self  acquainted  with  geological  phe- 
nomena of  the  most  varied  kinds. 
With  the  exception  of  one  or  two 
minor  papers  written  in  later  years, 
it  may  be  said  that  all  his  direct  con- 
tributions to  geology  arose  out  of 
the  Beagle  voyage.  The  largest  and 
most  important  part  of  his  geological 
work  deal  with  the  hypogene  forces 
of  nature — those  that  arc  concerned 
in  volcanoes  and  earthquakes,  in  the 
elevation  of  mountains  and  continents, 
in  the  subsidence  of  vast  areas  of  the 
sea-bottom,  and  in  the  crumpling, 
foliation,  and  cleavage  of  the  rocks 
of  the  earth's  crust.  His  researches 
in  these  subjects  were  mainly  embod- 
ied in  the  Geology  of  the  Voyage  of 
the  Beagle — a  work  which,  in  three 
successive  parts,  was  published  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Lords  of  the 
Treasury. 

The  order  chosen  by  Darwin  for 
the  subjects  of  these  three  parts 
probably  indicates  the  relative  im- 
portance Avith  Avhich  they  were  re- 
garded by  himself.  The  first  was  en- 
titled The  /Structure  and  Distribu- 
tion of  Coral  Reefs  (1842).  This 
well-known  treatise,  the  most  orig- 
inal of  all  its  author's  geological 
memoirs,  has  become  one  of  the  re- 
cognized classics  of  geological  litera- 
ture. The  origin  of  those  remarkable 
rings  of  coral-rock  in  mid-ocean  had 
given  rise  to  much  speculation,  but 
]io  satisfactory  solution  of  the  problem 
had  been  proposed.  After  visiting 
many  of  them,  and  examining  also 
coral-reefs  that  fringe  islands  and 
continents,  he  offered  a  theory  which 
for  simplicity  and  grandeur  strikes 
every  reader  with  astonishment.  It 
is  pleasant  after  the  lapse  of  many 
years  to  recall  the  delight  with  which 
one  first  read  the  Coral  Beefs,  how 
one  watched  the  facts  being  marshal- 
led into  their  places,  nothing  being 
ignored  or  passed  lightly  over,  and 
how  step  by  step  one  was  led  up  to 
the  grand  conclusion  of  wide  oceanic 
subsidence.  No  more  admirable 
example  of  scientific  method  was 
ever  given  to  the  world,  and  even  if 
he    had    written    nothing    else,    this 


[:!l-2] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


treatise  alone  would  have  placed  Dak- 
wm  in  the  very  front  of  investigators 
of  nature. 

The  second  part  was  entitled 
Geological  Observations  of  the 
Volcanic  Islands  visited  during  the 
Voyage  of  II.M  t:^.  Beagle^  together 
.with  some  .Brief  Notices  on  the 
Geology  of  A  ustralia  and  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope  (1844).  Full  of  de- 
tailed observations,  this  work  still 
remains  the  hest  authority  on  the  gen- 
eral geological  structure  of  most  of 
the  regions  it  describes.  At  the  time 
it  was  written,  the  "  Crater  of  Eleva- 
tion theory,"  though  o])po.sed  by 
'  Constant,  Frevost,  Sorope,  and 
Lyell,  was  generally  accepted,  at 
least  on  the  Continent.  Darwin, 
however,  could  not  receive  it  as  a 
valid  explanation  of  the  facts,  and 
though  he  did  not  adopt  the  views  of 
its  chief  opponents,  but  ventured  to 
propose  a  hjq>othesis  of  his  own,  the 
observations  impartially  made  and 
described  by  him  in  this  volume  must 
be  regarded  as  having  contributed 
toward  the  final  solution  of  the  ques- 
tion. 

The  third  and  concluding  part  bore 
the  title  of  Geological  (Observations 
on  South  America  (1846).  In  this 
work  the  author  embodied  all  the 
materials  collected  by  him  for  the 
illustration  of  South  American  geol- 
ogy save  some  which  had  already 
been  published  elsewhere.  One  of 
the  most  important  features  of  the 
book  was  the  evidence  which  it 
brought  forward  to  ])rove  the  slow, 
interrupted  elevation  of  the  South 
American  Continent  during  a  recent 
geological  period.  On  the  western 
sea-board  he  showed  that  beds  of 
marine  shells  could  be  traced  more  or 
less  continuously  for  a  distance  of 
upward  of  2,000  miles,  that  the 
elevation  had  been  unequal,  reaching 
in  some  })laces  at  least  to  as  much  as 
1,300  feet,  that  in  one  instance,  at  a 
hight  of  85  feet  above  the  sea,  un- 
doubted traces  of  the  presence  of  man 
occurred  in  a  raised  beach,  and  hence 
that  the  land  had  there  risen  85  feet 
since  Indian  man  had  inhabited  Peru. 


These  proofs  of  recent  elevation  may 
have  influenced  him  in  the  conclu- 
sion which  lie  drew  as  to  the  marine 
origin  of  the  great  elevated  plains  of 
Chili.  But  at  that  time  there  was  a 
general  tendency  among  liritish  geol- 
ogists to  detect  evidence  of  sea-action 
everywhere,  and  to  ignore  or  minimize 
the  action  of  running  water  and  wind- 
drift  upon  the  land  An  im])ortant 
chapter  of  the  volume,  devoted  to  a 
discussion  of  the  phenomeni  of  cleav- 
age and  foliation,  is  well  known  to 
every  student  of  the  literature  of 
metamorj)hism. 

The  official  records  of  the  Beagle 
did  not,  however,  include  all  that 
Darwin  wrote  on  the  geology  of  the 
voyage.  lie  contributed  to  the  Trans- 
actions of  the  Geological  Society 
(vol.  V.  1840)  a  paper  on  the  connec- 
tion of  volcanic  phenomena.  In  the 
same  publication  (vi.  1842)  appears 
another,  on  the  erratic  boulders  of 
South  America  ;  while  a  third,  on  the 
geology  of  the  Falkland  Islands,  was 
published  later 

While  dealing  with  the  subterrane- 
an agents  in  geological  change,  he 
kept  at  the  same  time  an  ever  wach- 
ful  eye  upon  the  siqjerticial  operations 
by  which  the  surface  of  the  globe  is 
modified,  lie  is  one  of  the  earliest 
writers  to  recognize  the  magnitude 
of  the  denudation  to  which  even  recent 
geological  accunnilations  have  been 
subjected.  One  of  the  most  impres- 
sive lessons  to  be  learnt  from  his 
account  of  Volcanic  Islands  is  the 
prodigious  extent  to  which  they  have 
been  denuded.  As  just  stated,  he 
was  disposed  to  attribut3  more  of  this 
work  to  tiie  action  of  the  sea  than 
most  geologists  would  now  admit; 
but  he  lived  himself  to  modify  his 
original  views,  and  on  this  subject  his 
latest  utterances  are  quite  abreast  of 
the  time.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
I  one  of  his  early  geological  papers  was 
on  the  Formation  of  Mould  (1840), 
and  that  after  the  lapse  of  forty  years 
he  returned  to  this  subject,  devoting 
to  it  the  last  of  his  volumes.  In  tlie 
first  sketch  we  see  the  patient  observ- 
ation and  shrewdness   of  inference  so 


DARWIR  AND    HUMBOLDT, 


[313]  9 


>eminently  characteristic  of  the  writer, 
and  in  the  finished  work  the  same 
faculties  enriched  witli  the  experience 
of  a  long  and  busy  life.  In  bringing 
to  light  the  operations  of  the  earth- 
worm, he  called  the  attention  of 
geologists  to  an  agency,  the  real 
efficiency  of  which  they  probably  do 
not  yet  appreciate.  Emk  de  Beau- 
mont looked  upon  the  layer  of  grass- 
covered  soil  as  a  permanent  datum- 
line  from  which  tho  denudation  of  ex- 
posed surfaces  might  be  measured. 
But,  as  Dakwix  showed,  tfie  constant 
transference  of  soil  from  beneath  to 
the  surface,  and  the  consequent  ex- 
posure of  the  mateiials  so  transferred 
to  be  dried  and  blown  away  by  wind, 
or  to  be  washed  to  lower  levels  by 
rain,  must  tend  slowly  but  certainly 
to  lower  the  level  even  of  undisturbed 
grass-covered  land. 

To  another  of  his  early  papers  ref- 
erence may  be  made,  from  its  interest 
in  the  history  of  British  geology. 
BucKLAND,  following  in  the  footsteps 
of  AftAssiz,  had  initiated  that  prodig- 
ious amount  of  literature  which  has 
now  been  devoted  to  the  records  of 
the  Glacial  period  in  this  country,  by 
reading  to  the  Geological  Society  a 
paper  "  On  Diluvio-glacial  Phenome- 
na in  Snowdonia  and  in  adjacent 
parts  of  North  Wales  "  (1841 ;.  Dak- 
win,  whose  wanderings  in  South 
American  had  led  him  lo  study  the 
problems  presented  by  erratic  blocks, 
took  an  early  ojjportunity  of  visiting 
the  Welsh  district  described  by  Buck- 
land,  and  at  once  declared  himself  to 
be  a  believer  in  the  former  presence 
of  glaciers  in  Britain.  His  paper 
(1843)  in  which  this  belief  is  stated 
and  enforced  by  additional  observa- 
tions, stands  almost  at  the  top  of  the 
long  list  of  English  contributions  to 
the  history  of  the  Ice  Age. 

The  influence  exercised  upon  the 
progress  of  geology  by  Dauwin's 
researches  in  other  than  geological 
fields,  is  less  easy  to  be  appraised. 
Yet  ic  has  been  far  more  wi(les])read 
and  profound  than  that  of  his  direct 
geological  work.  Even  as  far  back 
as   the   time   of   the    vovage    of  the 


Beagle,  he  had  been  led  to  reflect 
deeply  on  some  of  Lyell's  specula- 
tions upon  the  influence  of  geological 
changes  on  the  geographical  distribu- 
tion of  animals.  From  that  time  the 
intimate  connection  between  geologi- 
cal history  and  biological  progress 
seems  to  have  been  continually  pre- 
sent in  his  mind.  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, until  the  appearance  of  the 
Orighi  of  /Species  in  1859  that  the 
full  import  of  his  reflections  was  per- 
ceived. His  chapter  on  the  "  Imper- 
fection of  the  Geological  Record  ' ' 
startled  geologists  as  from  a  profound 
slumber.  It  would  be  incorrect  to 
say  that  he  was  the  first  to  recognize 
the  incompleteness  of  the  record;  but 
certainly  until  the  appearance  of  that 
famous  chapter  the  general  body  of 
geologists  was  blissfully  unconscious 
of  the  essentially  fragmentary  char- 
acter of  the  geol()gic;d  record.  Dar- 
win showed  why  this  must  necessarily 
be  the  case  ;  how  multitudes  of  organ- 
ic types,  both  of  the  sea  and  of  the 
land,  must  have  decayed  and  never 
have  been  preserved  in  any  geologi- 
cal deposit;  how,  even  if  entombed  in 
such  accumulations,  they  would  in 
great  measure  be  dissolved  away 
by  the  subsequent  percolation  of  water. 
Returning  to  some  of  his  early  specu- 
lations, he  ])ointed  out  that  massive 
geological  deposits  rich  in  fossils 
could  only  have  been  laid  down  dur- 
ing subsidence,  and  only  where  the 
supply  of  sediment  was  sufficient  to 
let  the  sea  remain  shallow,  and  to 
entomb  the  organic  remains  on  its 
floor  before  they  had  decayed.  Hence, 
by  the  very  conditions  of  its  forma- 
tion, the  geological  record,  instead  of 
being  a  continuous  and  tolerably 
coujplete  chronicle,  must  be  intermit- 
tent and  fragmentary.  The  sudden 
appearance  of  whole  groups  of  allied 
species  of  fossils  on  certain  horizons 
had  been  assumed  by  some  eminent 
authorities  as  a  fatal  objection  to  any 
doctrine  of  the  transmutation  of 
species.  But  Dauwin  now  claimed 
this  fact  as  only  another  evidence  of 
the  enormous  gaps  in  geological 
history.    Reiterating  again  and  again 


10  [314] 


DARWIN   ARD   HUMBOLDT. 


that  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  world 
had  been  examined  geologically,  and 
that  even  that  fraction  was  still  hut 
imperfectly  known,  he  called  atten- 
tion to  the  history  of  geological  dis- 
covery as  furnishing  itself  a  strong  ar- 
gument against  those  who  reasoned  as 
if  the  geological  record  were  a  full 
chronicle  of  the  history  of  life  upon  the 
earth.  There  is  a  natural  tendency 
to  look  upon  the  horizon  upon  which 
a  fossil  species  tirst  appears  as  mark- 
ing its  birtli,  and  that  on  which  it 
finally  disappears  as  indicating  its 
extinction.  Daravin  declared  this 
assumption  to  be  "rash  in  the  extreme." 
No  palaeontologist  or  geologist  will 
now  gainsay  this  asseition.  And  yet 
how  continually  do  we  still  hear  men 
talking  of  the  stages  of  the  geologi- 
cal record,  as  if  these  were  sharply 
marked  oif  everywhere  by  the  first 
appeax-ance  and  final  disappearance  of 
certain  species.  The  boldness  with 
which  Darwin  challenged  some  of 
these  long-rooted  beliefs  is  not  less 
conspicuous  than  the  modesty  and 
deference  with  which  his  own  sugges- 
tions were  always  given.  "It  is 
notorious,"  he  remarked,  "on  what 
excessively  slight  diflFerences  many 
palaeontologists  have  founded  their 
species ;  and  they  do  this  the  more 
readily  if  the  specimens  come  from 
diflFerent  sub-stages  of  the  same  forma- 
tion." 

Starting  from  this  conception  of 
the  nature  of  the  geological  record, 
Darwin  could  show  that  the  leading 
facts  made  known  by  palaeontology 
could  be  explained  by  his  theory  of 
descent  with  modification  through 
natural  selection.  New  species  had 
slowly  come  in,  as  old  ones  had  slowly 
died  out.  Once  the  thread  of  succes- 
sion had  been  broken  it  was  never 
taken  up  again  ;  an  extinct  species  or 
group  never  reappeared,  yet  extinction 
was  a  slow  and  unequal  process,  and 
a  few  descendants  of  ancient  types 
might  be  found  lingering  in  protect- 
ed and  isolated  situations.  "  We  can 
understand  how  it  is  that  all  the 
forms  of  life,  ancient  and  recent, 
make  together  one  grand  system  ;  for 


all  are  connected  by  generation.  From 
the  continued  tendency  to  divergence, 
the  more  ancient  a  form  is,  the  more 
generally  it  differs  from  those  no*v 
living.  The  inhabitants  of  each 
successive  period  m  the  world's  history 
have  beaten  their  predecessors  in  the 
race  for  life,  and  are  in  'so  far  liigher 
in  the  scale  of  nature;  and  this  may 
account  for  that  vague,  yet  ill-de- 
1  fined  sentiment,  felt  by  many  palae- 
I  ontologists,  that  organization  on  the 
!  whole  has  progressed.  If  it  should 
hereafter  be  proved  that  ancient 
animals  resemble  to  a  certain  extent 
the  embryos  of  more  recent  animals  of 
the  same  class,  this  fact  will  be  intel- 
ligible" 

Again,  what  a  flood  of  fresh  light 
was  poured  upon  geological  inquiry 
by  the  two  chapters  on  Geographical 
Distribution  in  the  Origin  of  Species/ 
A  new  field  of  research,  or,  at  least, 
one  in  which  comparatively  little  had 
been  yet  attempted,  was  there  opened 
out.  The  grouping  of  living  organ- 
isms over  the  globe  was  now  seen  ta 
have  the  most  momentous  geological 
bearings.  Every  species  of  plant  and 
animal  must  have  had  a  geological 
history,  and  might  be  made  to  tell  its 
story  of  the  changes  of  land  and  sea. 

In  fine,  the  spirit  of  !Mr.  Darwin's 
teaching  may  be  traced  all  through 
the  literature  of  science,  even  in  de- 
partments which  he  never  himself 
entered.  No  branch  of  research  has 
benefited  more  from  the  infusion 
of  this  spirit  than  geology.  Time- 
honored  prejudices  have  been  broken 
down,  theories  that  seemed  the  most 
surely  based  have  been  reconsidered, 
and,  when  found  untenable,  have  been 
boldly  discarded.  That  the  Present 
must  be  taken  as  a  guide  to  the  Past, 
has  been  more  fearlessly  asserted 
than  ever.  And  yet  it  has  been  re- 
cognized that  the  present  differs  widely 
from  the  past,  that  there  has  been  a 
progress  everywhere,  that  Evolution 
and  not  Uniformitarianism  has  been 
the  law  by  which  geological  history 
has  been  governed.  For  the  impetus 
with  which  these  views  have  been 
advanced  in  every  civilized  country. 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[315]  11 


we  look  up  with  reverence  to  the 
loved  and  immortal  name  of  Cuaules 
Darwix. 


IV.  WORK  IN  BOTANY. 


BY  W.   T.   THISELTON    DYER,   F.R.S. 


In  attempting  to  estimate  tlie 
influence  which  Mr.  Darwin's  writ- 
ings have  exerted  on  the  progress  of 
botanical  science,  we  must  necessarily 
discriminate  between  the  indirect 
effect  which  his  views  have  had  on 
botanical  research  generally,  and  the 
direct  results  of  his  own  contributions. 
No  doubt  in  a  sense  the  former  will 
seem  in  the  retrospect  to  overshadow 
the  latter.  For  in  his  later  writings 
Mr.  Darwin  was  content  to  devote 
himself  to  the  consideration  of  prob- 
lems which,  in  a  limited  field, 
brought  his  own  theoretical  views  to 
a  detailed  test,  and  so  may  ultimately 
seem  to  be  soxewhat  merged  in  them. 
Yet  these  writings  can  never  fail  to 
command  our  admiration  even  viewed 
apart  from  all  else  that  Mr.  Darwin 
did.  It  is  wonderful  enough  that  so 
great  a  master  in  biological  science 
should,  at  an  advanced  age,  have  been 
content  to  work  with  all  the  fervor 
and  assiduity  of  youth  at  jjhenomena 
of  vegetable  life  apparently  minute 
and  of  the  most  special  kind.  To  him, 
no  doubt,  they  were  not  minute,  but 
instinct  with  a  significance  that  the 
professed  botanical  world  had  for  the 
most  part  missed  seeing  in  them  fail- 
ing the  point  of  view  which  Mr.  Dar- 
win himself  supplied.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  each  of  his  botanical 
investigations,  taken  on  its  own 
merits,  would  alone  have  made  the 
reputation  of  any  ordinary  botanist. 

Mr.  Darwin's  attitude  toward  bot- 
any, as  indeed  to  biological  studies 
generally,  was,  it  should  always  be 
remembered,  in  his  early  life  essen- 
tially that  of  a  naturalist  of  the  school 
of  LiNNyKus  and  Humboldt — a  point 
of  view  unfortunately  now  perhaps  a 
little  out  of  fashion.  Nature  in  all 
its  aspects  spoke  to  his  feelings  with 
a  voice  that  was    living  and  direct. 


The  wr* ter  of  these  lines  can  well  re- 
member Mr.  Darwin  gently  complain- 
ing that  some  of  this  warm  enthusiasm 
for  nature,  as  it  presents  itself  un- 
analysed  to  ordinary  healthy  vision, 
seemed  to  be  a  little  dulled  in  the 
younger  naturalists  of  the  day.  The 
pages  of  the  Journal  of  Researches 
show  no  such  restraint,  but  abound 
with  passages  in  which  Mr.  Darwin's 
unstudied  and  simple  language  is  car- 
lied  by  the  force  of  warm  impression 
and  perfect  joy  in  nature  to  a  level  of 
singular  beauty.  One  passage  may 
be  quoted  as  an  illustration  ;  it  is 
from  the  description  of  Bahia  in 
chapter  xxi: 

"  When  quietly  walking  along  the 
shady  pathways,  and  admiring  each 
successive  view,  I  wished  to  find 
language  to  express  my  ideas.  Epi- 
thet after  epithet  was  found  too  weak 
to  convey  to  those  who  have  not 
visited  the  intertropical  regions,  the 
sensation  of  delight  which  the  mind 
experiences.  I  have  said  that  the 
plants  in  a  hothouse  fail  to  communi- 
cate a  just  idea  of  the  vegetation,  yet 
I  must  recur  to  it.  The  land  is  one 
great  wild,  untidy,  luxuriant  hothouse, 
made  by  nature  for  herself,  but  taken 
possession  of  by  man,  who  has  studded 
it  with  gay  houses  and  formal  gar- 
dens. How  great  would  be  the  desire 
in  every  admirer  of  nature  to  behold, 
if  such  were  possible,  the  scenery  of 
another  planet !  Yet  to  every  person 
in  Europe,  it  may  be  truly  said,  that 
at  the  distance  of  only  a  few  degrees 
from  his  native  soil,  the  glories  of 
another  world  are  opened  to  him.  In 
my  last  walk  I  stopped  again  and 
again  to  gaze  on  these  beauties,  and 
endeavored  to  fix  in  my  mind  forever, 
an  impression  which  at  the  time  I 
knew  sooner  or  later  must  fail.  The 
form  of  the  orange-tree,  the  cocoa- 
nut,  the  palm,  the  mango,  the  tree- 
fern,  the  banana,  will  remain  clear 
and  separate  ;  but  the  thousand  beau- 
ties which  unite  these  into  one  per- 
fect scene  must  fade  away  ;  yet  they 
will  leave,  like  a  tale  heard  in  child- 
hood, a  picture  full  of  indistinct,  but 
most  beautiful  figures." 


12  [316] 


DARWIN   AND   HUMBOLDT. 


A  spirit  such  as  this,  penetrating 
an  intelligence  such  as  Mr.  Darwin's, 
would  not  content  itself  with  the 
superticial  interest  of  form  and  color. 
These,  in  his  eyes,  were  the  outward 
and  visible  signs  of  the  inner  secrets. 
The  fascination  of  sense  which  the 
former  imposed  upon  him  but  stimu- 
lated his  desire  to  unveil  the  latter. 
In  the  Galapagos  we  are  not  then 
surprised  to  lind  liim  ardently  ab- 
sorbed in  the  }»roblems  which  the 
extraordinary  distriV»ution  of  the 
plants,  no  less  than  of  other  organ- 
isms presented  : — "  I  indiscriminately 
collected,"  he  sa3's,  '-everything  in 
flower  on  the  diifei'ent  islands,  and 
fortunately  kept  my  collections  sep- 
arate." 

After  tabulating  the  results  which 
they  yielded  after  systematic  determ- 
ination, lie  proceeds : 

"  Hence  we  liave  the  truly  wonder- 
ful fact,  that  in  James  Island,  of  the 
tliirty-eight  Galapageian  plants,  or 
those  found  in  no  other  part  of  the 
world,  thirty  are  exclusively  confined 
to  tliis  one  island  ;  and  in  Albemarle 
Island,  of  the  twenty-six  aboriginal 
Galapageian  plants,  twenty-two  are 
■confined  to  this  one  island,  that  is, 
only  four  are  known  to  giow  on  the 
other  islands  of  the  Archipelago  ;  and 
so  oji,  as  shown  in  the  above  table, 
with  the  ])lants  from  Chatham  and 
Charles  Island.'' 

It   is    iin])Ossible    in    reading   the 
Origin   of  Species    not   to  peiceive 
how  deejily  j\Ir.   Dakwik  had    been  : 
impressed  by  the  ])roblems  presented  ; 
})y  such  singularities  of  ]jlant  distribu- ; 
tion  as  he  met  with  in  the  Galapagos,  j 
And  of  such  problems  up  to  the  time 
of    its   ]»ublication  no  intelligible  ex- : 
planatioii    had  seemed  possible.     iSii:  | 
JosKPii  lIooKKK  had  indeed  ))repared  , 
tlie  ground    by   bringing  into  prom- 1 
ineuce,  in  numerous  ijuportant  papers,  | 
the  no  less  striking  phenomena  which  \ 
were  presented  when  the  vegetation  i 
of  large  areas   came  to   be  analysed  i 
and    compared.      No   one    therefore 
<;ould  estimate  more  justly   what  Mr. 
Darwin  did  for  those  who  worked  in  j 
this  field.     How  the  whole  theory  of  I 


the  geographical  distribution  of  plants 
stood  after  the  publication  of  the 
Origin  of  Species  cannot  then  be 
better  estimated  than  from  the 
summary  of  the  position,  contained  in 
Sjii  .TosKPu  Hooker's  recent  Address 
to  the  Geographical  Section  of  the 
meeting  of  the  liritish  Associdtiou  at 
York. 

"  Before  the  publication  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  origin  of  species  by  varia- 
tion and  naturalselection,  allreasoning 
on  their -distribution  was  in  subordina- 
tion to  the  idea  that  these  were  per- 
manent and   special    creations ;    just 
as,  before  it  was  shown  that  species 
were  often  older  than  the  islands  and 
mountains  they  inhabited,  naturalists 
had   to   make  their    theories    accord 
with  the  idea  that  all  migration  took  . 
place   under    existing    conditions   of 
land  and  sea.     Hitlierto  the  modes  of 
dispersion  of  species,  genera  and  fam- 
ilies  had    been    traced,  but  the  orii>in 
ot  representative  species,  genera,  and 
families,  remained  an  enigma  ;    these 
could  be  explained  0!ily  by    the  sup- 
[tositiou  that  the  localites  where  they 
occurred      presented    conditions     so 
similar    that  they    favored  the  crea- 
tion of  simihir  organisms.     But  this 
failed  to  account   for   representation 
occurring  in    the   far   more   numer- 
ous   cases    where  there    is    no    dis- 
coverable     similarity     of     })hysical 
conditions,  and  of  their  not  occurring 
in    places    where    the  conditions  are 
similar.      Now    under  the  theory  of 
modification  of  species  after   migra- 
tion and  isolation,  iheir  representation 
in  distant  localities  is  only  a  question 
of   time  and    cliaiiged  })hysical  con- 
ditions.   In  fact,  as  Mr.  Darwin  well 
sums  up,  all  the  leading  facts  of  dis- 
tribution are  clearly  explicable  under 
this  theory  ;  such  as  tl)e   multiplica- 
tion of  new  forms,  the  inijmrtance  of 
barriers   in  forming  and   separating 
zoological  and  botanical   provinces ; 
the  concentration  of  related  species  in 
the  same  area  ;  the  linking  together 
under   different   latitudes   of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  plains  and  mountains, 
of   the  forests,  m.irshes,  and  deserts, 
and  the   linkiutr   uf   these  with   the 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[31TJ  13- 


extinct  beings  which  formerly  in- 
habited the  same  areas  ;  and  the  fact 
of  different  forms  of  life  occurring  in 
areas  having  nearly  the  same  physical 
conditions." 

If  Mr.  Darwin  had  done  no  more 
than  this  for  botanical  science  he 
would  have  left  an  indelible  mark  on 
its  progress.  But  the  consideration 
of  the  various  questions  which  the 
problem  of  the  origin  of  species  pre- 
sented led  him  into  other  inquiries  in 
which  the  results  were  scarcely  less 
important.  The  key-note  of  a  whole 
series  of  his  writings  is  struck  by 
the  words  with  which  the  eighth 
chapter  of  the  Origin  of  Species  cova.- 
mences : 

"The  view  generally  entertained 
by  naturalists  is  that  species,  when 
intercrossed,  have  been  specially 
endowed  with  the  quality  of  sterility, 
in  order  to  prevent  the  confusion  of 
all  organic  forms." 

The  examination  of  this  principle 
necessarily  obliged  him  to  make  a 
profound  study  of  the  conditions  and 
limits  of  sterility.  The  results  em- 
bodied in  his  well-known  papers  on  [ 
dimorphic  and  trimorphic  plants  af- 
forded an  absolutely  conclusive  proof 
that  sterility  was  not  inseparably  tied 
up  with  specific  divergence.  But  the 
question  is  handled  in  the  most  cau- 
tious way,  andAvhenthe  reader  of  the 
chapter  on  hybridism  arrives  at  the 
concluding  words,  in  which  Mr.  Dar- 
win declares  that  on  this  ground  "there 
is  no  fundamental  distinction  between 
species  and  varieties,"  he  finds  himself 
in  much  the  same  intellectual  position 
as  is  produced  by  the  Q.E.D.  at  the 
end  of  a  geometrical   demonstration. 

It  Avas  characteristic  of  Mr.  Dak- 
win's  ffiethod  of  study  to  follow  up  on 
its  own  account,  as  completely  as  pos- 
sible, when  opportunity  presented, 
any  side  issue  which  had  been  raised 
apparently  incidentally  in  other  dis- 
ussions.  Indeed,  it  was  never  pos- 
sible to  guess  what  amount  of  evi- 
ience  Mr.  Dakwin  had  in  reserve 
behind  the  few  words  which  marked 
1  mere  step  in  an  argument.  It  is 
Tom  his  practice  of  bringing  out  from 


,  time  to  time  the  contents  of  his  un- 
I  seen  treasure-house  that  we  gain 
I  some  insight  into  the  scientific  fertil- 
!  ity  of  his  later  years,  at  first  sight  so 
inexplicably  prolific.  Many  of  his 
works  published  during  that  period 
may  be  properly  regarded  in  the  light 
of  disquisitions  on  particular  j.oints 
of  his  great  theory.  The  researches 
on  the  sexual  phenomena  of  hetero- 
styled  plants,  alluded  to  above,  which 
were  communicated  to  the  Linnean 
Society  ia  a  series  of  papers  ranging 
over  the  years  1862-8,  ultimately 
found  their  complete  development  in 
the  volume  On  the  Different  Forms 
of  Flowers  07i  Flajits  of  the  same 
/S}?ecies,  published  in  1877.  In  the 
same  way,  the  statement  in  the  Origin 
of  Species,  that  "the  crossing  of 
forms  only  slightly  differentiated 
favors  the  vigor  and  fertility  of 
their  offspring,"  finds  its  complete  ex- 
pansion in  The  Effects  of  Cross  and 
Self-Fertilization  in  the  Vegetable 
Kingdom,  published  in  1876. 

The  Origin  of  Species  in  the  form 
in  Avhich  it  has  become  a  classic  in 
scientific  literature  was  originally  only 
intended  as  a  preliminary /)recis  of  a 
vast  accumulation  of  facts  and  argu- 
ments which  the  author  had  collected. 
It  was  intended  to  be  but  the  precur- 
sor of  a  series  of  works  in  which  all 
the  evidence  was  to  be  methodically 
set  out  and  discussed.  Of  this  vast 
undertaking  only  one  portion,  the 
Variation  of  Plants  and  Animals 
under  Domestication,  was  ever  actu- 
ally published.  Apart  from  its  pri- 
mary purpose  it  produced  a  profound 
impression,  especially  on  botanists. 
This  was  partly  due  to  the  undeniable 
force  of  the  argument  from  analogy 
stated  in  a  sentence  in  the  introduc- 
tion: "Man  may  be  said  to  have 
been  trying  an  experiment  on  a  gigan- 
tic scale;  and  it  is  an  experiment 
which  nature,  during  the  long  lapse 
of  time,  has  incessantly  tried."  But 
it  was  still  more  due  to  the  unex- 
pected use  of  the  vast  body  of  appar- 
ently trivial  facts  and  observations 
which  Mr.  Darwin  with  astonishing 
industry  had  disinterred  from  weekly 


14  [318] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT 


journals  and  ephemeral  publications  of 
all  sorts  and  unexpectedly  forced  in- 
to his  service.  Like  Moliere's  Mon- 
sieur Jourdain,  who  was  delighted  lo 
iind  that  he  had  been  unwittingly 
talking  prose  all  his  life,  horticultur 
ists  who  had  unconsciously  molded 
plants  almost  at  their  will  at  the 
impulse  of  taste  or  profit  were  at 
■once  amazed  and  charmed  to  find 
that  they  had  been  doing  scientific 
work  and  helping  to  establish  a  great 
theory.  The  criticism  of  practical 
men,  at  once  most  tenacious  and  dif- 
ficult to  meet,  was  disarmed  ;  these 
found  themselves  hoisted  with  their 
own  petard.  Nor  was  this  all.  Tho 
exclusive  province  of  science  was  in 
biological  phenomena  forever  broken 
down  ;  every  one  whose  avocations  in 
life  had  to  do  with  the  rearing  or  use 
of  living  things,  found  himself  a  party 
to  the  "  experiment  on  a  gigantic 
ficale,"  which  had  been  going  on 
ever  since  the  human  race  withdrew 
for  their  own  ends  plants  or  animals 
from  the  feral  and  brought  them  into 
the  domesticated  state. 

Mr.  Dakwin  Avith  characteristic 
modesty  had  probably  underrated 
the  effect  which  the  Origin  of 
tipecies  would  have  as  an  argumenta- 
tive statement  of  his  views.  When 
he  came  to  realize  this,  it  probably 
seemed  to  him  unnecessary  to  submit 
to  the  labor  of  methodizing  the  vast 
accumulations  which  lie  had  doubt- 
leas  made  for  the  seeond  and  third 
installments  of  the  detailed  exposition 
of  the  evidence  which  he  had  promised. 
As  was  hinted  at  the  commencement, 
his  attention  was  rather  drawn  away 
from  the  study  of  evidence  already 
at  the  disposal  of  those  who  cared  to 
digest  and  weigh  it,  to  the  exi)lora- 
tion  of  the  field  of  nature  with  the 
new  and  ])enetrating  instrument  of 
reseai'ch  w^hich  he  had  himself  forged. 
Something  too  must  be  credited  to 
the  intense  delight  which  he  felt  in 
investigating  the  phenomena  of  liv- 
ing things.  But  he  doubtless  saw 
that  the  work  to  be  done  was  to  show 
how  morphological  and  physiological 
complexity    found     its     explanation 


from  the  principle  of  natural  eelec- 
tion.  This  is  the  idea  which  is  ever 
dominant.  Thus  he  concludes  his 
work  on  climbing  plants:  "It  has 
often  been  vaguely  asserted  that 
plants  are  distinguished  from  animals 
by  not  having  the  power  of  move- 
ment. It  should  raiher  be  said  that 
jdants  acquire  and  display  this  power 
only  when  it  is  of  some  advantage  to 
them;  this  being  of  comparatively 
j  rare  occurrence,  as  they  are  alfixed  to 
!  the  ground,  and  food  is  brought  to 
i  them  by  the  air  and  rain."  The 
\  diversity  of  the  power  of  movement 
I  in  plants  naturally  engaged  his  atteu- 
I  tiou,  and  the  last  but  one  of  his 
works — in  some  respects  perhaps  the 
most  remarkable  of  his  botanical 
writings — was  devoted  to  showing 
that  this  diversity  could  be  regarded 
as  derived  from  a  single  fundamental 
property:  "All  the  parts  or  organs 
of  every  plant  while  they  continue  to  . 
grow  .  .  .  are  continually  circumuuta- 
ting."  Whether  this  masterly  con- 
ception of  the  unity  of  what  has 
hitherto  seemed  a  chaos  of  unrelated 
phenomena  will  be  sustained  time 
alone  will  show.  But  no  one  can 
doubt  the  importance  of  what  Mr. 
Darwin  has  done  in  showing  that  for 
the  future  the  phenomena  of  plant 
movement  can  and  indeed  must  be 
studied  from  a  single  point  of  view. 
Along  another  line  of  work  Mr. 
Dakwin  occupied  hiuiself  with  show- 
ing what  aid  could  be  given  by  the 
princii)le  of  natural  selection  in  ex- 
plaining the  extraordinary  structural 
variety  exhibited  by  plant  morpho- 
logy. The  fact  that  cross-fertilization 
was  an  advantage,  was  the  key  with 
which,  as  indicated  in  the  pages  of 
the  Origin  of  S2)ecies,  the  bizarre 
complexities  of  orchid  flowers  could 
be  unlocked.  The  detailed  facts  were 
set  out  in  a  well-known  work,  and  the 
principle  is  now  generally  accepted! 
with  regard  to  flowers  generally,  Tho 
work  on  insectivorous  plants  gave  the 
results  of  an  exploration  similar  in  its 
object,  and  bringing  under  one  com- 
mon physiological  point  of  view  a 
variety    of    the    most    diverse    and 


DARWIN  AND   HUMBOLDT 


[319]  15 


most  remarkable  modifications  of  leaf- 
form. 

lu  the  beginning  of  these  remarks 
the  attempt  has  already  been  made  to 
do  justice  to  the  mark  Mr.  Darwin 
has  left  on  the  modern  study  of  geo- 
graphical botany  (and  that  implies  a 
corresponding  influence  on  })hyto- 
palceontology).  To  measure  the  in- 
fluence which  he  has  had  on  any 
other  brandies  of  botany,  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  quote  again  from  the  Origin 
of  Species  :  "  The  structure  of  each 
part  of  each  species,  for  whatever 
purpose  used,  will  be  the  sum  of  the 
many  inherited  changes  through 
which  the  species  has  passed  during 
its  successive  adaptations  to  changed 
liabits  and  conditions  of  life."  These 
words  may  almost  be  said  to  be  the 
key-note  of  Sachs's  well-known  text- 
book, which  is  the  most  authoritative 
modern  exposition   of  the  facts  and 

.  principles  of  plant-structure  and  func- 
tion ;  and  there  is  probably  not  a 
botanical  class-room  or  work-room  in 
the  civilized  world  where  they  are 
not  the  animating  principle  of  both 
instruction  and  research. 

Noth withstanding  the  extent  and 
variety  of  his  botanical  work,  Mr. 
Darwix  always  disclaimed  any  right 
to  be  regarded  as  a  professed  botanist. 
He    turned  his    attention   to    plants 

t  doubtless  because  they  were  con 
venient  objects  for  studying  organic 

:;  phenomena  in  their  least  complicated 
forms;   and  this  point  of  view,  which, 

'  if  one  may  use  the  expression  without 
disrespect,  had  something  of  the 
amateur  about  it,  was  in  itself  of  the 
l^reatest  imj)ortance.  For,  from  not 
being,  till  he  took  up  any  point,  fa- 
miliar Avith  the  literature  bearing  on 
it,  his  mind  was  absolutely  free  from 
any  prepossession.  He  was  never 
afraid  of  his  facts  or  of  framing  any 
liypothesis,  however  startling,  which 
«eemed  to  explain  them.  However 
mucli  weight  he  attributed  to  inherit- 
ance as  a  factor  in  organic  ])henomena, 
tradition  went  for  nothing  in  studying 
them.  In  any  one  else  such  an  atti- 
tude would  have  produced  much  work 
that  M':is  crude    and  rash.     But  Mr. 


Darwin — if  one  may  venture  on  lan- 
guage which  will  strike  no  one  who 
had  conversed  with  him  as  over- 
strained— seemed  by  gentle  persuasion 
to  have  penetrated  that  reserve  of 
nature  which  baffles  smaller  men.  In 
other  words,  his  long  experience  had 
given  him  a  kind  of  instinctive  in- 
sight into  the  method  of  attack  of 
any  biological  pi-oblem,  however  un- 
familiar to  him,  while  he  rigidly 
controlled  the  fertility  of  his  mind  in 
hypothetical  explanations  by  the  no 
less  fertility  of  ingeniously-devised 
experiment.  Whatever  he  touched, 
he  was  sure  to  draw  from  it  some- 
thing that  it  had  never  before  yielded, 
and  he  was  Avholly  free  from  that 
familiarity  which  comes  to  the  pro- 
fessed student  in  every  branch  of 
science,  and  blinds  the  mental  eye 
to  the  significance  of  things  which 
are  overlooked  because  always  in 
view. 

The  simplicity    of    Mr.  Darwin's 
character  pervaded  his  whole  method 

of    work.       Al.PHONSE     I)E     CaNUOL'LE 

visited  him  in  1880  and  felt  the  im- 
pression of  this  :  "  He  was  not  one 
of  those  who  would  construct  a  palace 
to  lodge  a  laboratory.  I  sought  out 
the  greenhouse  in  which  so  many 
admirable  experiments  had  been  made 
on  hybrids.  It  contained  nothing  but 
a  vine."  There  was  no  affectation  in 
this.  Mr.  Darwin  provided  himself 
with  every  resource  which  the  meth- 
ods of  the  day  or  the  mechanical 
ingenuity  of  his  sons  could  supply, 
and  when  it  had  served  its  purpose  it 
was  discarded.  Nor  had  he  any  pre- 
possession in  favor  of  one  kind  of 
scientific  work  more  than  another. 
His  scientific  temperament  was  thor- 
oughly catholic  and  syinjnatlietic  to 
anything  which  was  not  a  mere  re- 
grinding  of  old  scientific  dry  bones. 
He  would  show  his  visitors  an  Epi- 
pactls  which  for  years  came  up  in  the 
middle  of  one  of  his  gravel  walks  with 
almost  as  much  interest  as  some  new 
point  which  he  had  made  out  in  a 
])iece  of  work  actually  in  hand.  And 
though  lie  had  long  abandoned  any 
active   interest  in   systematic   work, 


16  [320] 


DARWIN   ARD    HUMBOLDT. 


only  a  few  months  before  his  death 
he  had  arranged  to  provide  funds  for 
the  preparation  of  tiie  ncAv  edition  of 
SxEUDEL'sNomenclator,*  which,  at  hia 
earnest  wish,  has  been  projected  at 
Kew. 


V.    WORK  IN  ZOOLOGY. 


BT  G.  J.  ROMANES,   F.R.S. 


The  influence  which  our  great 
naturalist  has  exerted  upon  zoology- 
is  unquestionably  greater  than  that 
which  has  been  exerted  by  any  other 
individual ;  and  as  it  depends  on  his 
generalizations  much  more  than  upon 
his  particular  researches,  we  may  best 
do  justice  to  it  by  taking  a  broad 
view  of  the  effects  of  Darwinism  on 
zoology,  rather  than  by  detailing 
those  numberless  facts  which  have 
been  added  to  the  science  by  the  ever 
vigilant  observations  of  Darwin. 
Nevertheless,  we  may  begin  our  sur- 
vey by  enumerating  the  more  im- 
portant results  of  his  purely  zoologi- 
cal work,  not  so  much  because  these 
have  been  rarely  equaled  by  the  Avork 
of  any  other  zoologist,  as  because  we 
may  thus  give  due  prominence  to  the 
remarkable  association  of  qualities 
which  was  presented  by  Mr.  Dak- 
win's  mind.  This  association  of 
qualities  was  such  that  he  was  able 
fully  to  appreciate  and  successfully  to 
cultivate  every  dej)artment  and  rami- 
lication  of  biological  research — wheth- 
er morphological,  physiological,  syste- 
matic, descriptive,  or  statistical — and 
at  the  same  time  to  rise  above  the 
tninutice  of  these  various  branches,  to 
take  those  commanding  views  of  the 
whole  range  of  nature  and  of  natural 
science  which  have  produced  so 
enormous  a  change  upon  our  means 
of  knowledge  and  our  modes  of 
thought.  No  laborer  in  the  field  of 
science  has  ever  plodded  more 
patiently  through  masses  of  small  de- 


*  An  enumeration  of  the  names  and  syn- 
onyms of  all  described  flowerings  plants  with 
their  native  countries. 


tail ;  no  master-mind  on  the  highest- 
elevation  of  philosophy  has  ever 
grasped  more  world- transforming 
truth. 

Taking  the  purely  zoological  work 
in  historical  order,  we  have  first 
to  consider  the  observations  made 
during  the  voyage  of  the  JBeagle. 
These,  however,  are  much  too  numer- 
ous and  minute  to  admit  of  being 
here  detailed.  Among  the  most 
curious  are  those  relating  to  the 
scissor-beak  bird,  niata  cattle,  aeronaut 
spiders,  upland  geese,  sense  of  sight 
and  smell  in  vultures;  and  among 
the  most  important  are  those  relating 
to  the  geographical  distribution  of 
species.  The  results  obtained  on  the 
latter  head  are  of  peculiar  interest, 
inasmuch  as  it  was  owing  to  them, 
that  I\Ir.  Dakwin  was  first  led  to- 
entertain  the  idea  of  evolution.  As 
displaying  the  dawn  of  this  idea  in  his 
mind  we  may  quote  a  passage  or  two 
from  his  Voyage  of  a  Naturalist, 
where  these  observations  relating  to 
distribution  are  given : 

''These  mountains  (the  Andes) 
have  existed  as  a  great  barrier  since 
the  present  races  of  animals  have 
appeared,  and  therefore,  unless  we 
suppose  the  same  species  to  have 
been  created  in  two  different  places, 
we  ought  not  to  expect  any  closer 
similarity  between  the  organic  beings 
on  the  opposite  sides  of  the  Andes, 
than  on  the  opposite  shores  of  the 
ocean." 

"The  natural  history  of  these 
islands  (of  the  Galapagos  Archipelago) 
is  eminently  curious,  and  well  deserves 
attention.  Most  of  the  organic  pro- 
ductions are  aboriginal  creations, 
found  nowhere  else  ;  there  is  even  a 
difference  between  the  inhabitants  of 
the  different  islands ;  yet  all  show  a 
marked  relationship  with  tliose  of 
America,  though  separated  from  that 
continent  by  an  open  space  of  ocean 
between  500  and  600  miles  in  width. 
The  Archipelago  is  a  little  world 
within  itself,  or  rather  a  satellite 
attached  to  America,  whence  it  has 
derived  a  few  stray  colonists,  and  has 
received  the  general  character  of  its 


DARWIR  AND    HUMBOLDT. 


.[321]  17 


indigenous  productions.  Considering 
the  small  size  of  the  islands,  we  feel 
astonished  at  the  number  of  their 
aboriginal  beings,  and  at  their  con- 
fined range.  Seeing  every  height 
crowned  with  its  crater,  and  the 
boundaries  of  most  of  the  lava-streams 
still  distinct,  we  are  led  to  believe 
that  within  a  period  geologically 
recent,  the  unbroken  ocean  was  here 
spread  out.  Hence,  both  in  space 
and  time,  we  seem  to  be  brought 
somewhat  near  to  that  fact — that 
mystery  of  mysteries — the  first  appear- 
ance of  new  beings  on  this  earth." 

Next  in  order  of  time  we  have  to 
notice  the  Monograph  of  the  Cirrl- 
pedia.  This  immensely  elaborate 
work  was  published  by  the  Ray  So 
ciety  in  two  volumes,  comprising  to- 
gether over  1,000  large  octavo  pages, 
and  40  plates.  These  massive  books 
(which  were  respectively  published  in 
1851  and  1854)  convey  the  results  of 
several  years  of  devoted  inquiry,  and 
arc  particularly  interesting,  not  only 
on  account  of  the  intrinsic  value  of 
the  work,  but  also  because  they  show 
that  Mr.  Darwin's  powers  of  research 
were  not  less  remarkable  in  the  direc- 
tion of  purely  anatomical  investiga- 
tion than  they  were  in  that  of  physio- 
logical experiment  and  philosophical 
generalization.  No  one  can  even 
glance  through  this  memoir  without 
perceiving  that  if  it  had  stood  alone 
it  would  have  placed  its  author  in  the 
very  first  rank  as  a  morphological  in- 
vestigator. The  prodigious  number 
and  minute  accuracy  of  his  dissections, 
the  exhaustive  detail  with  which  he 
worked  out  every  branch  of  his  sub- 
ject— sparing  no  pains  in  procuring 
every  species  that  it  was  possible  to 
procure,  in  collecting  all  the  known 
facts  relating  to  the  geographical  and 
geological  distribution  of  the  group, 
in  tracing  the  complicated  history  of 
metamorphoses  represented  by  the  in- 
dividuals of  the  sundry  species,  in 
disentangling  the  problem  of  the 
homologies  of  these  perplexing  ani- 
mals, etc. — all  combine  to  show  that 
had  Mr.  Darwin  chosen  to  devote 
himself  to  a  life  of  purely  morpholog- 


ical work,  his  name  would  probably 
have  been  second  to  none  in  that  de- 
partment of  biology.  We  have  to 
thank  his  native  sagacity  that  such 
was  not  his  choice.  Valuable  as 
without  any  question  are  the  results 
of  the  great  anatomical  research  which 
we  are  considering,  we  cannot  peruse 
these  thousand  pages  of  closely- writ- 
ten detail  without  feeling  that,  for  a 
man  of  Mr.  Darwin's  exceptional 
powers,  even  such  results  are  too 
dearly  bought  by  the  expenditure  of 
time  required  for  obtaining  them. 
We  cannot,  indeed,  be  sorry  that  he 
engaged  in  and  completed  this  solid 
piece  of  morphological  work,  because 
it  now  stands  as  a  monument  to  his 
great  ability  in  this  direction  of  in- 
([uiry  ;  but  at  the  same  time  we  feel 
sincerely  glad  that  the  conspicuous 
success  which  attended  the  exercise  of 
such  ability  in  this  instance  did  not 
betray  him  into  other  undertakings 
of  the  same  kind.  Such  undertak- 
ings may  suitably  be  left  to  establish 
the  fame  of  great  though  lesser  men ; 
it  would  have  been  a  calamity  in  the 
history  of  our  race  if  Charles  Dar- 
win had  been  tempted  by  his  own 
ability  to  become  a  comparative  anat- 
omist. 

But  as  we  have  said — and  we  repeat 
it  lest  there  should  be  any  possibility 
of  mistaking  what  Ave  mean — the 
results  which  attended  this  laborious 
inquiry  were  of  the  highest  import- 
ance to  comparative  anatomy,  and  of 
the  highest  interest  to  comparative 
anatomists.  The  limits  of  this  article 
do  not  admit  of  our  giving  a  summary 
of  these  results,  so  we  shall  only 
allude  to  the  one  which  is  most  im- 
portant. This  is  the  discovery  of 
•'Coraplemental  Males."  The  manner 
in  which  this  discovery  was  made  in 
its  entii'ety  is  of  interest,  as  showing 
the  importance  of  remembering  ap- 
parently insignificant  observations 
which  may  happen  to  be  incidentally 
made  during  the  progress  of  a  re- 
search.    For  Mr.  Darwin  writes  : 

"When  first  dissecting  Scalpelhim 
vulgar e^  I  was  surprised  at  the  almost 
constant  uresence  of  one  or  more  very 


18  [322] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


minute  parasites,  on  the  margins  of 
both  scuta,  close  to  the  umboues.  I 
carelessly  dissected  one  or  two  speci- 
mens, and  concluded  that  they  be- 
longed to  some  new  class  or  order 
among  the  Articulata,  but  did  not 
at  the  time  ev^en  conjecture  that  they 
were  Cirripedes.  Many  months  af- 
terward, when  T  had  seen  in  Ibla 
that  an  hermaphrodite  could  have  a 
complemental  male,  I  remembered 
that  I  had  been  surprised  at  the  small 
size  of  the  vesiculaj  seminales  in  the 
hermaj)hrodite  S.  vulgare,  so  that  I 
resolved  to  look  with  care  at  these 
parasites :  on  doing  so  I  now  dis- 
covered that  they  were  Cirripedes, 
for  I  found  that  they  adhered  by  ce- 
ment, and  were  furnished  with  pre- 
hensile antenna;,  which  latter,  I  ob- 
served with  astonishment,  agreed  in 
every  minute  character,  and  in  size, 
with  those  of  S.  vulgare.  I  also  found 
that  these  parasites  were  destitute  of 
R  mouth  and  stomach ;  that  con- 
sequently they  were  short-lived  but 
that  they  reached  maturity ;  and  that 
all  were  males.  Subsequently  five  other 
species  of  the  genus  Scalpellum  were 
found  to  present  more  or  Isss  closely- 
analogous  ])henomeua.  These  facts, 
together  with  those  given  under  Ibla 
(and  had  it  not  been  for  this  latter 
genus,  I  never  probably  should  have 
struck  on  the  right  line  in  my  investi- 
gation), appear  sufficient  to  justify 
me  in  provisionally  considering  the 
truly  wonderful  parasites  of  the  seve- 
ral species  of  Scalpellum,  as  Males  and 
Complemental  Males."  (vol.  i.  pp. 
292-3). 

The  remai'kable  phenomena  of 
sexuality  in  these  animals  is  summed 
up  thus : 

"  The  simple  fact  of  the  diversity  in 
the  sexual  relations  displayed  within 
the  limits  of  the  genera  Ibla  and  Scal- 
pellum, appears  lo  me  eminently  curi- 
ous. We  have  (1)  a  female,  with  a 
male  (or  rarely  two)  permanently 
attached  to  her,  protected  by  her,  and 
nourished  by  any  minute  animals 
which  may  enter  her  sac  ;  (2)  a  female, 
with  successive  pairs  of  short-lived 
/nales,  destitute  of  mouth  and  stom- 


ach, inhabiting  the  pouches  formed 
on  the  under  sides  of  her  two  valves; 
(3)  an  hermaphrodite,  with  from  one 
or  two,  up  to  five  or  six,  similar 
short-lived  males  without  mouth  or 
stomach,  attached  to  one  particular 
spot  on  each  side  of  the  orifice  of  the  ca- 
pitulum ;  and  (4)  hermaphrodites,  with 
occasionally  one,  two,  or  three  males, 
capable  of  seizing  and  devouring  their 
prey  in  the  ordinary  Cirripedal  meth- 
od, attached  to  two  parts  of  the 
capitulum,  in  both  cases  being  pro- 
tected by  the  closing  of  the  scuta." 
With  reference  to  these  Comple- 
mental Males  (so-called  "  to  show  that 
they  do  not  pair  with  a  female,  but  with 
a  bisexual  individual.")  Mr.  DARwi>f 
further  observes :  "Nothing  strictly 
analogous  is  known  in  the  animal 
kingdom  ;  but  amongst  plants,  in  the 
Liunean  class  Polygamia,  closely 
similar  instances  abound ; "  and  also 
that  "in  the  series  of  facts  now  given 
we  have  one  curious  illustration  more 
to  the  many  already  known,  how 
gradually  nature  changes  from  one 
condition  to  the  other,  in  this  case 
from  bisexuality  to  unisexuality." 
(ii.  29). 

Lastly,  to  give  only  one  other  quo- 
tation from  this  work,  he  writes  : 

"  As  I  am  summing  up  the  singu- 
larity of  the  phenomena  here  present- 
ed, I  will  allude  to  the  marvelous 
assemblage  of  beings  seen  by  me 
within  the  sac  of  an  Ibla  quadrival- 
vis,  namely,  an  old  and  young  male, 
both  minute,  worm-like,  destitute  of  a 
capitulum,  with  a  great  mouth  and 
rudimentary  thorax  and  limbs,  attach- 
ed to  each  other  and  to  the  hermaph- 
rodite, which  latter  is  utterly  dif- 
ferent in  appearance  and  structure  ; 
secondly,  the  four  or  five  free,  boat- 
shaped  larva3,  with  their  curious  pre- 
hensile antennae,  two  great  compound 
eyes,  no  mouth,  and  six  natatory 
legs ;  and  lastly,  several  hundreds  of 
the  larva;,  in  their  first  stage  of  de- 
velopment, globular,  with  horn-shaped 
projections  on  their  carapaces,  minute 
single  eyes,  filiform  antennae,  pro- 
bosciform  mouths,  and  only  three 
pairs  of  natatory  legs.  What  diverse 


DARWIN    AJMl)    HUMBOLDT. 


[323]  19 


beinga,  with  scarcely  anything  in 
ooiumon,  and  yet  all  belonging  to  the 
itanie  8j)ecie8!  "  (i.  293). 

Scattered  through  the  Origin  of 
Sj}ccieH^  the  Variation  of  Plants  and 
Animals  under  J)omestication,  and 
tJie  jDesceyit  of  Man,  we  meet  with 
many  purely  zoological  observations 
of  much  interest  and  importance  as 
such,  or  apart  from  their  bearing  on 
the  general  principles  and  arguments 
for  the  illustration  or  fortification  of 
which  they  are  introduced.  In  tliis 
connection  we  may  particularly  allude 
to  the  chapters  on  Variability,  Hy- 
bridism, and  Geographical  Distribu- 
tion— chapters  which  contain  such  a 
large  number  of  new  facts,  as  well  as 
new  groupings  of  old  ones,  that  we 
cannot  undertake  to  epitomize  them  in 
a  resume  of  Mr.  Darwin's  work  so 
brief  as  the  present.  Nor  should  we 
forget  to  mention  in  the  present  con- 
nection his  experimental  proof  of  the 
manner  in  which  bees  make  their 
hexagonal  cells,  ad  of  the  important 
part  played  in  the  economy  of  nature 
t>y  earthworms.  Moreover,  the  hy- 
])0thesi8  of  sexual  selection  necessitat- 
ed the  collection  of  a  large  body  of 
facts  relating  to  the  ornamentation  of 
all  classes  of  animals,  from  insects  and 
Crustacea  upward  ;  and  whatever  we 
may  think  about  the  stability  of  the 
hypothesis,  there  can  be  no  question, 
from  a  zoological  point  of  view,  con- 
cerning the  value  of  this  collection  of 
facts  as  such. 

But  without  waiting  to  consider 
■further  the  purely  zoological  results 
presented  by  the  work  before  us,  we 
must  turn  to  consider  the  effects  of 
this  work  upon  zoological  science  it- 
self. And  here  avc  approach  the 
true  magnitude  of  Darwin  as  a 
Koologist.  Of  very  few  mcji  in  the 
history  of  our  race  can  it  be  said  that 
they  not  only  enlarged  science,  but 
changed  it — not  only  added  facts  to 
the  growing  structure  of  natural 
knowledge,  but  profoundly  nioditied 
the  basal  couce])tioi;s  upon  Avhicli  the 
whole  structure  rested  ;  and  of  no  one 
can  this  be  said  with  more  truth  than 
it    can    be   said    of    Dakwin.     For 


although  it  is  the  case  that  the  idea 
of  evolution  had  occurred  to  other 
minds — in  two  or  three  instances 
with  all  the  force  of  full  conviction — 
it  is  no  less  certainly  the  case  that  the 
idea  proved  barren.  Why  did  it 
prove  so  ?  Because  it  had  never  be- 
fore been  fertilized  by  the  idea  of 
natural  selection.  To  demonstrate, 
or  to  render  sufficiently  probable  by 
inference,  X\\Qfact  of  evolution  (ior 
direct  observation  of  the  process  is 
from  the  nature  of  the  case  impossible), 
required  some  reasonable  suggestion 
as  to  the  cause  of  evolution,  such  as 
is  supplied  by  the  theory  of  natural 
selection  ;  and  when  once  this  suffges- 
tion  was  forthcoming,  it  mattered 
little  whether  it  was  considered  as 
propounding  the  only,  the  chief,  or 
but  a  subordinate  cause  ;  all  that  was 
needed  to  recommend  the  evidence  of 
evolution  to  the  judgment  of  science 
was  the  discovery  of  some  cause 
which  could  be  reasonably  regarded 
as  not  incommensurate  with  some  of 
the  effects  ascribed  to  it.  And,  un- 
like the  desperate  though  most  laud- 
able groupings  of  Lamarck,  the  sim- 
ple solution  furnished  by  Darwin 
was  precisely  what  was  required  to 
give  a  locus  standi  to  the  evidence 
of  tlescent. 

But  we  should  form  a  very  inade- 
quate estimate  of  the  services  render- 
ed to  science  by  Mr.  Darwin  if  we 
Avere  to  stop  here.  The  few  gen- 
eral facts  out  of  which  the  theory  of 
evolution  by  natural  selection  is 
formed — viz.  struggle  for  existence, 
survival  of  the  fittest,  and  heredity — 
were  all  previously  well-known  facts; 
and  Ave  may  not  unreasonably  feel 
astonished  that  so  apparently  obvious 
a  combination  of  them  as  that  which 
occurred  to  Mr.  Darwin  should  have 
occurred  to  no  one  else,  with  the 
single  exception  of  Mr.  Waliace. 
The  fact  that  it  did  not  do  so  is  most 
fortunate  in  two  respects — first,  be- 
cause it  gave  Mr.  Daravin  the  op- 
portunity of  pondering  upon  the  sub- 
ject a*^  initio,  and  next  because  it  gavo 
the  world  an  opportunity  of  Avitness- 
iniT    the   disinterested     uuselfishnes* 


20  [324] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


which   has  been   so   signally  and  so 
consistently  displayed  by  both  these 
English    naturalists.     But  the  great- 
ness of  Mr.  Darwin  as   the  reformer 
of  biology  is  not  to  be  estimated  by 
the  fact  that  he  conceived  the  idea  of 
natural  selection  ;  his  claim   to  ever- 
lasting memory  rests  upon  the  many 
years  of  devoted   labor  whereby  he 
tested  this    idea  in    all    conceivable 
ways — amassing    facts    from    every 
department  of  science,  balancing  evi- 
dence with   the  soundest  judgment, 
shirking    no   difficulty,  and    at   last 
astonishing  the  world  as  with  a  reve- 
lation by  publishing  the   completed 
proof  of  evolution.     Indeed,  so  co- 
lossal is  Mr.  Darwin's  greatness  in 
this   respect,  that  we  doubt  whether 
there  ever  was  a  man  so  well  fitted  to 
undertake  the  work  which  he  has  so 
successfully  accomplished.     For  this 
Avork  required  not  merely  vast  and 
varied  knowledge  of  many  provinces 
of  science,  and  the  very   exceptional 
powers  of  judgment  which  Mr.  Dar- 
"wiN  possessed,  but  also  the   patience 
to  labor  for  many   years   at  a  great 
generalization,    the     honest    candor 
which  rendered  the   author  his   own 
best  critic,  and   last,  though  perhaps 
not  least,  the  magnanimous  simplicity 
of  character   which,  in   rising  above 
all  petty  and  personal  feelings,  deliv- 
ered a  thought-reversing   doctrine  to 
mankind  with  as  little  disturbance  as 
possible  of   the  deeply- rooted    senti- 
ments of  the  age.     In  the  chapter  of 
accidents,  therefore,  it  is  a  singularly 
fortunate  coincidence   that  Mr.  Dar- 
win was  the  man  to  whom  the  idea  of 
natural    selection    occurred ;   for   al- 
though in    a   generation  or   two  the 
truth  of   evolution    might   have    be- 
come more  and  more  forced  upon  the 
belief  of  science,  and  with  it  the  ac- 
ceptance of  natural   selection   as  an 
operating  cause,  in  our  own  genera- 
tion this  could   only  have   been    ac- 
complished  in   the  way  that  it  was 
accomplished ;  we  required  one  such 
exceptional  mind  as  that  of  Darwin 
to  focus  the   facts,  and   to  show   the 
method. 
,    It  seems   almost  needless  to    turn 


from   this   aspect  of  our   subject   to 
enlarge  upon  the   influence  which  a- 
general  acceptance  of   the  theory  of 
descent  has  had  upon   biology.     We 
do  not   state  the  case   too  strongly 
when  we  say  that  this  has  been  the 
influence  which  has  created  organiza- 
tion out  of  confusion,  brought  the  dry 
bones  to  life,  and  made  all  the  previ- 
ously   dissociated    facts    of    science 
stand  up  as  an  exceeding  great  array. 
Let  any   one    turn  to    the    eloquent 
projihecy   with   which   the  pages  of 
the  Origin  of  /Species   terminate — a 
prophecy  Avhich   sets   forth  in  order 
the  transforming  effect  that  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution  w^ould  in  the  future 
exert  upon  every  department  of  biol- 
ogy— and   he   may   rejoice  to   think 
that  Mr.    Darwin   himself  lived   to 
see  every  word  of  that  prophecy  ful- 
filled.    For  where  is  now  the  "syste- 
matist  .  .   .  incessantly    haunted   by 
the  shadowy  doubt  whether   this  or 
that  form  be  a  true  species  ?  "     And 
has  it  not  proved  that  "the  other  and 
more  general  departments  of  natural 
history  will  rise  greatly  in  interest — 
that  the  terms  used  by  naturalists,  of 
aflinity,    relationship,   community    of 
type,  paternity,  morphology,  adaptive 
characters,  rudimentary  and    aborted 
organs,  etc  ,  will  cease  to  be  metaphor- 
ical, and   will  have  a  plain  significa- 
tion ?  "     Do  we   not   indeed  begin  to 
feel  that  "  we  no  longer   look  at  an 
organic  being  as  a  savage    looks  at  a 
ship,  as  something  wholly  beyond  his 
comprehension?  And  when  we  regard 
(U'ery   production   of    nature  as  one 
which  has  had  a  long  history,  when 
we  contemplate  every  complete  struc- 
ture and  instinct  as  the  summing  up 
of  many  contrivances,  each  useful  to 
the  possessor,  in  the  same  way  as  any 
great    mechanical    invention   is    the 
summing  up  of  the  labor,  the  experi- 
ence, the  reason,  and  even  the  blunders 
of  numerous  workmen,  when  we  thus 
view  each  organic   being,"   may  we 
not  now  all  say  with  Darwin,  "How 
far  more  interesting — I    speak  from 
experience — does  the  study  of  natural 
history  become  ?  "     And  may  we  not 
now  all  see  that  "  a  grand  and  almost 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[325]  21 


untrodden  field  of  inquiry  on  the  laws 
of   variation,  on    correlation,  on   the 
effects  of  use  and  disuse,  on  the  direct 
action   of   external   conditions "  has 
been  opened  up  ;  that  our  classifica- 
tions have  become  "  as  far  as  they 
can  be  made  so,  genealogies,  and  truly 
give  what  may  be  called  a  plan  of 
creation  ; "  that   rules   of   classifying 
do  "  become  simpler  when  we  have  a 
definite  object  in  view;"  and    that 
"■  aberrant  species,  which  may  fanci- 
fully be  called  living  fossils,"  actually 
^re  of  service  in  supplying  "a  picture 
of    ancient    forms  of    life?"      And 
again,    must     we    not     agree     that 
"when    we    can    feel    assured     that 
all  the  individuals  of  the  same  species 
and    all     the     closely-allied    species 
of   most  genera,  have,  within  a  not 
very  remote  period,  descended  from 
one  parent,  and   have  migrated  from 
6ome  one  birthplace ;    and  when  we 
better  know  the  many  means  of  migra- 
tion, then,  by  the  light  which  geology 
now   throws,    and    will    contiime   to 
throw,  on  former  changes  of  climate 
and  of  the  level  of  the  land,  we  shall 
eurely  be  able  to  trace  in  an  admira- 
ble manner  the  former  migrations  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  whole  world"  ? 
Aiid  who  is  now  able  to  question  that 
"by  comparing   the    differences   be- 
tween the  inhabitants  of  the  sea  on 
the  opposite  sides  of  a  continent,  and 
of  the  various  inhabitants  on  that  con- 
tinent 


the  lavSt  two-and-twenty  years  has  in 
so  astonishing  a  measure  verified  the 
prophecy  of  the  Origin  of  Species, 
surely,  in  conclusion,  we  are  more 
than  ever  constrained  to  agree  with 
the  sentiments  expressed  by  its  clos- 
ing words  :  "  When  I  view  all  beings, 
not  as  special  creations,  but  as  the 
lineal  descendants  of  some  fewbeinfs 
which  lived  long  before  the  first  bed 
•of  the  Cambrian  system  was  deposited, 
they  seem  to  me  to  become  enno- 
bled .  .  .  There  is  grandeur  in  this 
view  of  life,  with  its  several  powers, 
having  been  originally  breathed  by 
the  Creator  into  a  few  forms  or  into 
one  ;  and  that,  whilst  this  planet  has 
gone  cycling  on  according  to  the  fixed 
law  of  gravity,  from  so  simple  a  be- 
ginning endless  forms  most  beautiful 
and  most  wonderful  have  been,  and 
are  being  evolved." 


VI.    WORK   IN  PSYCHOLOGY. 


BY    a.    J.    ROMANES,  K.B.S. 


The  effects  upon  Psychology  of  Mr. 
Darwin's  writings  have  been  so  im- 
mense, that  we  shall  not  overstate 
them  by  saying  that  they  are  fully 
comparable  with  those  which  we  have 


previously  considered  as  having  been 

exerted  by  the  same  writings  on  geol- 

in   relation  to  their  apparent  j  ogy,  botany,  and  zoology.     This  fact 

means  of  migration,  some  light  can   at  first  sight  can  scarcely  fail  to  strike 


be  thrown  on  ancient  geography"? 
Or,  if  we  turn  to  "  the  noble  science 
of  geology,"  do  we  not  see  that  we  are 
beginning  to  "  gauge  with  some 
security  the  duration  of  intervals  by 
a  comparison  of  th^  preceding  and 
succeeding  forms  of  life  " "?  And  last, 
though  not  least,  have  Ave  not  found 
this  one  short  sentence  so  charged 
"with  meaning  that  a  new  and  extensive 
science,  second  in  importance  to  none, 
may  be  almost  said  to  have  grown 
out  of  what  it  states  :  ''  Embryology 
will  often  reveal  to  us  the  structure. 


us  as  remarkable,  in  view  of  the  con- 
sideration that  Mr.  Dakwik  was  not 
only  not  himself  a  psychologist,  but 
had  little  aptitude  for,  and  perhaps 
less  sympathy  with,  the  technique  of 
psychological  method.  The  whole 
constitution  of  his  mind  was  opposed 
to  the  subtlety  of  the  distinctions  and 
the  mysticism  of  the  conceptions 
which  this  technique  so  frequently 
involves  ;  and  therefore  he  was  ac- 
customed to  regard  the  problems  of 
mind  in  the  same  broad  and  general 
light  that  he  regarded   all  the  other 


in  some  degree  obscured,  of  the  prolo-  problems  of  nature.     But   if  at  first 
itypes  "  ?  sight  we  are  inclined  to  feel  surprised 

If  the  j)rogress   of  science  during '  that,  although  possessing  none  of  the 


Tl  [:j'2G] 


DARWIN    AND    HUMBOLDT. 


special  mental  equipments  of  a 
peycbologiKt,  he  should  have  exert- 
ed BO  enormous  an  influence  upon 
psychology,  our  surprise  must  vanish 
when  we  consider  the  matter  a  little 
more  attentively.  P^or  the  truth  of 
thiB  matter  is  that  psychology,  in 
being  the  science  furthest  removed 
from  the  reach  of  experimental  means 
and  inductive  method,  is  the  science 
which  has  longest  remained  in  the 
trammels  of  a  priori  analysis  and 
metaphysical  thought ;  therefore  Dar- 
win, by  casting  the  eye  of  a  philo- 
sophical naturalist  upon  the  facts, 
without  reference  to  the  cobwebs 
which  the  specialists  had  woven 
around  them,  was  able  to  gather 
directly  much  new  information  as  to 
their  meaning.  And  the  rare  sagac- 
ity with  which  he  observed  and 
reflected  upon  the  phenomena  of  mind 
merely  as  phenomena  or  facts  of 
nature,  led  to  the  remarkable  results 
which  we  shall  presently  have  to  con- 
sider— results  which  have  done  more 
than  any  other  to  unrauflle  the  young 
science  of  psychology  from  the  swad- 
dling clothes  of  its  mediaeval  nursery. 
The  portions  of  Mr.  Dauwin's 
writings  which  refer  to  mental 
science  are  very  limited  in  extent — 
comprising,  in  fact,  only  one  chapter 
in  tlie  Origin  of  S-pecies,  three  in 
the  DeKcent  of  Matt,  and  a  short 
paper  on  the  development  of  in- 
fantile intelligence.  The  import- 
ance of  the  effect  produced  by 
them  is  therefore  rendered  all  the 
more  remarkable ;  but  in  this  con- 
nection it  seems  desirable  to  state  that 
the  chapters  to  which  Ave  have  alluded 
represent,  in  an  exceedingly  condensed 
form,  the  result  of  extensive  thought 
and  reading.  A  year  or  two  ago 
Mr.  Dauv/ix  lent  the  present  writer 
the  original  drafts  of  these  essaj'S, 
together  with  all  the  notes  and  mem- 
oranda which  he  had  collected  on 
psychological  subjects  during  the  pre- 
vious forty  years,  and  so  we  can  testi- 
fy that  any  one  who  reads  these  MSS. 
is  more  likely  to  be  surprised  at  the 
amount  of  labor  which  they  indicate 
than    at  the    effect   which  has  been 


produced  by  the  compressed  publica- 
tion of  its  results.  What  strikes 
one  most  in  reading  the  MSS.  is  that 
which  also  strikes  one  most  in  read- 
ing the  published  resume  that  has 
grown  out  of  them — namely,  the 
honest  adherence  throughout  to  the 
strictly  scientific,  or,  as  the  followers 
of  CoMTK  would  say,  positive  method 
of  seeking  and  interpreting  facts; 
speculation,  hypothesis,  and  straw- 
splitting  are  everywhere,  not  so  much 
intentionally  avoided,  as  alien  to  the 
whole  conception  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  sundry  problems  are  to  be 
attacked.  We  all  know  that  this  con- 
ception has  not  met  with  univereal  ap- 
proval— that  moi*e  than  one  writer, 
adhering  to  the  traditional  methods 
of  psychological  inquiry,  has  express- 
ly joined  issue  upon  it.  But  although 
it  is  an  easy  matter  for  a  technical 
psychologist  to  point  to  an  absence 
of  technical  thought,  and  so  of  a  rec- 
ognition of  technical  principles,  in 
these  parts  of  Mr.  DARwax'swritingR, 
we  are  persuaded  that  the  expose  oxAy 
serves  to  reveal  a  beam  in  the  eye  of 
the  technical  psychologist  which 
prevents  him  from  seeing  clearly  hov 
to  remove  the  mote  from  Mr.  Dab* 
win's.  In  other  words,  although  it 
is  true  that  Mr.  Dauwin  does  not  rec- 
ognize the  niceties  of  distinction 
which  seem  so  important  to  what  we 
may  term  the  professional  mind,  it 
is  no  less  true  that  in  the  ca-ses  to 
which  we  have  alluded,  the  profession- 
al mind  has  failed  in  its  duty  of  fill- 
ing up  for  itself  the  technical  lacunm 
in  Mr.  Darwin's  expositions.  Such 
lacHuce  no  doubt  occur,  but  they  never 
really  vitiate  the  integrity  of  the  con- 
clusions ;  and  a  trained  psycholo- 
gist would  best  fulfill  his  function 
as  an  undei'-builder,  by  supplying  here 
and  there  the  stones  which  the  hand 
of  the  master  has  neglected  to  put  in. 
To  ourselves  it  always  seems  one  of 
the  most  wonderful  of  the  many 
wonderful  aspects  of  Mr.  Darwin's 
varied  work,  that  by  the  sheer  force 
of  some  exalted  kind  of  common  sense, 
unassisted  by  any  special  acquaintance 
with  psychological  method,  he  should 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT, 


[827j  23 


have  been  able  to  strike,  as  it  were, 
straight  down  iipon  some  of  the  most 
important  truths  which  have  ever 
been  brought  to  light  in  the  region 
of  mental  science.  These  we  shall 
now  proceed  to  consider. 

The  chapter  in  the  Origin  of 
Species  to  which  we  have  referred,  is 
occupied  chiefly  with  an  application 
of  the  theory  of  natural  selection  to 
the  phenomena  of  instinct,  and  in  our 
opinion  it  has  done  more  than  all  other 
psychological  writings  put  together 
to  explain  what  instinct  is,  why  it  is 
and  how  it  came  to  be.  Before  this 
chapter  was  published,  the  only  scien- 
tific theory  concerning  the  origin  of 
instincts  that  had  been  formed  was 
the  theory  wh'ch  regarded  them  as 
hereditary  habits.  Because  we  know 
that  in  the  individual  intelligent  ad- 
justments become,  by  frequent  rep- 
etition, automatic,  it  was  inferred 
that  the  same  might  be  true  of  the 
species,  and  therefore  that  all  instincts 
were  to  be  regarded  as  what  Lewes 
has  aptly  termed  "lapsed  intelli- 
gence." In  this  view  there  is,  with- 
out any  question,  much  truth,  and  the 
first  thing  we  have  to  notice  about 
Mr.  Darwin's  writings  with  reference 
to  instinct  is  that  they  not  only  rec- 
ognized this  truth,  but,  by  elucida- 
ting the  whole  subject  of  heredity, 
placed  it  in  a  much  clearer  light  than 
it  ever  stood  before.  Mr.  Darwin, 
however,  carried  the  philosophy  of 
the  subject  very  much  further  when 
he  agiied  that,  in  conjunction  with  the 
cause  formulated  as  "lapsing  intelli- 
gence," there  was  another  at  least  as 
potent  in  the  formation  of  instincts — 
namely,  natural  selection.  His  own 
statement  of  the  case  is  so  terse  that 
we  cannot  do  better  than  quote  it. 

"If  Mozart,  instead  of  playing  the 
pianoforte  at  three  years  with  won- 
derfully little  practice,  had  played  a 
tune  with  no  practice  at  all,  he  might 
truly  be  said  to  have  done  so  instinct- 
ively. But  it  would  be  a  serious  error 
to  suppose  that  the  greater  number 
of  instincts  have  been  acquired  by 
habit  in  one  generation,  and  then 
transmitted  by  inheritance  to  succeed- 


ing generations.  It  can  be  clearly 
shown  that  the  most  wonderful  in- 
stincts with  which  we  are  acquainted, 
namely,  those  of  the  hive-bee  and  of 
many  ants,  could  not  possibly  have 
been  acquired  by  habit.* 

"It  will  be  universally  admitted  ] 
that  instincts  are  as  impoitant  as  cor- 
poreal structures  for  the  welfare  of 
each  species,  under  its  present  con- 
ditions of  life.  Under  changed  con- 
ditions of  life,  it  is  at  least  possible 
that  slight  modifications  of  instinct 
might  be  profitable  to  a  species  ;  and 
if  it  can  be  shown  that  instincts  do 
vai-y  ever  so  little,  then  I  can  see  no 
difficulty  in  natural  selection  preserv- 
ing and  continually  accumulating 
variations  of  instinct  to  any  extent 
that  was  profitable.  It  is  thus,  I  be- 
lieve, that  all  the  most  complex  and 
wonderful  instincts  have  originated." 

Briefly,  then,  in  Mr.  Darwin's 
view,  instincts  may  arise  by  lapsing 
intelligence,  by  luxtural  selection  of 
accidental  and  possibly  non-intelligent 
variations  of  habit,  or  by  both  prin- 
ciples combined — seeing  that  "a  little 
dose  of  judgment  "is  often  commin- 
gled with  even  the  most  fixed  (or 
most  strongly  inherited)  instincts. 
One  good  test  of  the  truth  of  the  view 
as  a  whole  is  that  which  Mr.  Darwin 
has  himself  sup]  ilied — namely,  search- 
ing through  the  whole  range  of  in- 
stincts to  see  Avhether  any  occur 
which  are  either  injurious  to  the 
animals  exhibiting  them,  or  benefical 
only  to  other  animals.  Now  there 
is  really,  no  authentic  case  of  the 
former,  and  the  latter  are  so  few  in 
number  that  they  may  reasonably  be 
regarded,  either  as  rudiments  of  in- 
stincts once  useful  (so  analogous  to 
the  human  tail),  or  as  still  useful  in 
some  unobservable  manner  (so  anal- 
ogous to  the  tail  of  the  rattlesnake). 
The  case  of  aphides  secreting  honey- 

*  Because  the  individuals  which  exhibit 
them,  being:  neuters,  can  never  have  progeny. 
It  is  indeed  surprising,  as  Mr.  Darwin 
further  on  observes,  that  no  one  previously 
"  advanced  this  demonstrative  case  of  neuter 
insects  against  the  well-l<nown  doctrine  of 
inherited  habit  as  advanced  by  Lamarck.' 


•■24  [328] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


dew  for  the  benefit  of  ants  occurred  to 
Mr.  Dakwin  as  one  which  might  be 
adduced  against  his  theory  in  this 
connection,  and  lie  therefore  made 
some  experiments  upon  the  subject, 
which  led  him  to  conchide  that ''as 
the  e.xcretion  is  extremely  viscid,  it  is 
no  doubt  a  convenience  to  the  aphides 
to  have  it  removed  ;  therefore  proba 
bly  they  do  not  excrete  solely  for  the 
good  of  the  ants." 

A  discussion  of  the  variability  of 
instinct,  and  of  the  probability  that 
variations  should  be  inherited,  leads 
him  to  consider  the  important  case  of 
the  apparent  formation  of  artificial 
instincts  in  our  domestic  dogs  by  con- 
tinued training  with  selection,  and  also 
the  not  less  important  case  of  the 
effects  produced  upon  natural  instincts 
by  the  long-continued  change  of  en- 
vironment to  which  other  of  our 
domestic  animals  have  been  exposed. 
All  the  facts  adduced  as  resulting 
from  these  long-continued  though 
unintentional  experiments  by  man,  go 
to  substantiate,  in  a  very  unmistaka- 
ble manner,  the  theory  concerning 
the  origin  and  development  of  in- 
stincts which  we  are  considering. 
The  chapter  concludes  with  a  close 
consideration  of  some  of  the  more 
remarkable  instincts  which  occur  in 
the  animal  kingdom,  such  as  the  par- 
asitic instinct  of  the  cuckoo,  the  slave- 
making  instinct  of  ants,  and  the  cell- 
making  instinct  of  bees.  A  flood  of 
light  is  thrown  upon  the  latter,  and 
the  old-standing  problem  as  to  how 
the  bees  liave  come  to  make  their  cells 
in  the  form  which  requires  the  smallest 
amount  of  material  for  their  construc- 
tion, while  affording  the  largest  ca- 
pacity for  purposes  of  storage,  is  solv- 
ed. 

From  this  brief  account  of  the 
chapter  on  "Instinct,"  it  is  evident 
that  the  new  idea  which  it  starts,  and 
in  several  directions  elaborates,  is  an 
idea  of  immense  importance  to  psy- 
chology, and  that  the  broad  marks  or 
general  principles  laid  down  by  it 
afford  large  scoj)e  for  a  further  fiUing- 
in  of  numberless  details  by  the  attent- 
ive observation  of  facts.     The  phe- 


nomena of  instinct,  indeed,  cease  to 
be  rebellious  to  explanation,  and 
range  themselves  in  orderly  array 
under  the  flag  of  science. 

But  not  less  important  than  the 
chapter  on  "  Instinct "  are  the  chapters 
in  the  JJeacent  of  Man  on  the  mental 
powers  of  man  as  compared  with 
those  of  the  lower  animals,  on  the 
moral  sense,  and  on  the  development 
of  both  during  primceval  and  civilized 
times.  Our  estimate  of  the  value  of 
these  chaj^ters  is  so  high  that  we 
gladly  endorse  the  opinion  of  the  late 
Prof.  Cliki'ord — who  was  no  mean 
judge  uj>on  such  matters — when  he 
writes  of  them  as  presenting  to  his 
mind  "the  simplest,  and  clearest,  and 
most  profound  {>hilosophy  that  was 
ever  written  upon  the  subject."  As 
the  three  chapters  together  cover  only 
eighty  pages,  it  seems  needless  to 
render  an  abstract  of  them,  so  we 
shall  only  observe  that  although  it  is 
easy  to  show  in  them,  as  Mr.  Mivart 
and  others  have  shown,  a  want  of 
appreciation  of  technical  terms,  and 
even  of  Aristotelian  ideas,  nowhere  in 
the  whole  range  of  Mr.  Darwin's 
writings  is  his  immense  power  of 
judicious  generalization  more  con- 
spicuously shown.  So  much  is  this 
the  case,  that  in  studying  these  chap- 
ters we  have  ourselves  always  felt 
glad  that  Mr.  Darwin  was  not  the 
speciali.st  in  psychology  which  some 
of  his  critics  seem  to  suppose  that  he 
ought  to  have  been  if  he  presumed  to 
shake  their  science  to  its  base  ;  had  he 
been  such  a  specialist  the  great  sweep 
of  his  thought  might  have  been  hinder- 
ed by  comparatively  immaterial  de- 
tails. 

Of  the   three   chapters   which  we 
are  considering,  the  most  important  is 
the  one  on  the  moral  sense.     As  he 
j  himself  says : 

}  "  This  great  question  (the  origin  of 
'  the  moral  sense)  lias  been  discussed 
I  by  many  writers  of  consummate  abil- 
j  ity ;  and  my  only  excuse  for  touching 
:  upon  it,  is  the  impossibility  of  here 
j  passing  it  over ;  and  because,  so  far 
1  as  I  know,  no  one  has  approached  it 
I  exclusively   from  the  side  of  natural 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[329]  25 


history.  The  investigation  possesses, 
also,  some  independent  interest,  as  an 
attempt  to  see  how  far  the  study  of 
the  lower  animals  throws  light  on 
one  of  the  highest  psychical  faculties 
of  man." 

The  result  of  this  investigation  and 
study  has  been  to  give,  if  not  a  new 
point  of  departure  to  the  science  of 
ethics,  at  least  a  completely  new  con- 
ception as  to  the  origin  of  the  faculties 
with  which  that  science  has  to  deal ; 
and  without  attempting  to  discuss  the 
objections  which  have  been  raised 
against  the  doctrine,  or  to  enumerate 
the  points  of  contact  between  this 
doctrine  and  older  ethical  theories — 
to  neither  of  which  undertakings 
would  our  present  space  be  adapted — 
we  may  say  in  general,  that,  as  in  the 
case  of  instinct,  so  in  that  of  con- 
science, we  feel  persuaded  that  Mr. 
Darwin's  genius  has  been  the  first 
to  bring  within  the  grasp  of  human 
understanding  large  classes  of  phe- 
nomena which  had  been  previously 
wholly  unintelligible. 

"The  Ex'inession  of  the  Emotions 
in  Man  and  Animals"  is  an  essay 
which  may  be  more  suitably  men- 
tioned in  the  present  division  than  in 
any  of  the  preceding.  The  work  is 
a  highly  interesting  one,  not  only  on 
account  of  its  philosophical  theories, 
but  also  as  an  extensive  accumulation 
of  facts.  "The  three  chief  principles" 
enunciated  by  the  foi'mer  are:  (1) 
"the  principle  of  serviceable  asso- 
ciated habits  "  ;  (2)  "the  principle  of 
antithesis";  and  (3)  "the  principle  of 
actions  due  to  tlie  constitution  of  the 
Nervous  System,  independently  from 
the  first  of  the  Will,  and  independent- 
ly to  a  certain  extent  of  Habit."  It 
is  shown  that  the  first  of  these  prin- 
ciples leads  to  the  performance  of  ac- 
tions expressive  of  emotions,  because 
*'■  certain  complex  actions  are  of  direct 
or  indirect  service  under  certain  states 
of  mind,  in  order  to  relieve  or  gratify 
certain  sensations  desired,  etc. ;  and 
whenever  the  same  state  of  mind  is  in- 
duced, however  feebly,  there  is  a  ten- 
dency through  the  force  of  habit  and  as- 
sociation for  the  same  movements  to 


be  performed,  though  they  may  not 
then  be  of  the  least  use. ' '  The  second 
principle  arises  because,  "  when  a 
directly  opposite  state  of  mind  is 
induced,  there  is  a  strong  and  invol- 
untary tendency  to  the  performance 
of  movements  of  a  directly  opposite 
nature,  though  these  are  of  no  use  ; 
and  such  movements  are  in  some 
cases  highly  expressive."  And  the 
third  principle  occurs  because,  "when 
the  sensorium  is  sti'ongly  excited, 
nerve-force  is  generated  in  excess, 
and  is  transmitted  in  certain  definite 
directions,  depending  on  the  connec- 
tion of  the  nerve-cells,  and  partly  on 
habit."  All  these  principles  are  more 
or  less  well  substantiated  by  large 
bodies  of  facts,  and  although  the 
essay,  from  the  nature  of  its  subject- 
matter,  is  necessarily  not  of  so  trans- 
forming a  character  in  psychology  as 
those  which  Ave  have  already  con- 
sidered, and  although  we  may  doubt 
whether  it  gives  a  full  explanation  of 
every  display  of  expressive  movement, 
we  think  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
quCvStion  that  the  three  principles  above 
quoted  are  shown  to  be  true  principles, 
and  therefore  that  the  essay  is  com- 
pletely successful  within  the  scope 
of  its  purposes. 

Lastly,  we  have  to  allude  to  the 
l)rief  paper  published  in  Mind  on  the 
psychogenesis  of  a  child.  These  notes 
were  not  published  till  long  after  they 
were  taken,  so  that  Mr.  Darwin  was 
the  first  observer,  in  a  department  of 
psychology  which — owing  chiefly  to 
the  attention  which  his  other  writings 
have  directed  to  the  phenomena  of 
evolution — is  now  being  very  fully 
explored.  The  observations  relate 
entirely  to  matters  of  fact,  and  dis- 
play the  same  qualities  of  thoughtful- 
ness  and  accuracy  which  are  so  con- 
spicuous in  all  his  otlier  work. 

On  the  whole,  then,  we  must  say 
that  Mr.  Darwin  has  left  as  broad 
and  deep  a  mark  upon  Psychology  as 
lie  has  upon  Geology,  Botany,  and 
Zoology.  Groups  of  facts  which 
previously  seemed  to  be  separate,  are 
now  seen  to  be  bound  together  in  the 
most  intimate  manner  ;  and  some  of 


26  [.'!30] 


DARWTN    AND    HUMBOLDT. 


what  must  he  rogaraed  as  the  first 
principles  of  the  scionce,  hitherto 
unsuspected,  have  been  brought  to 
light.  No  longer  is  it  enough  to  say 
that  such  and  such  actions  are  the 
result  of  instinct,  and  so  beyond  the 
reach  of  explanation ;  for  .low  the 
very  thing  to  bo  explained  is  the  char- 
acter and  origin  of  the  instinct — the 
causes  which  led  to  its  development, 
its  continuance,  its  precision  and  its 
use.  No  longer  is  it  enough  to  con- 
sider the  instincts  manifested  by  an 
animal,  or  a  group  of  animals,  as  an 
isolated  body  of  phenomena^  devoid 
of  any  scientific  meaning  because 
standing  out  of  relation  to  any  known 
causes  ;  for  now  the  whole  scientific 
import  of  instincts  as  manifested  by 
one  animal  depends  on  the  degree  in 
which  they  are  connected  by  general 
principles  of  causation  with  the  in- 
stincts that  are  manifested  by  oth((r 
animals.  And  not  only  in  respect  of 
instincts,  but  also  in  respect  of  intelli- 
gence, the  science  of  comparative 
psychology  may  be  said  for  the  first 
time  really  to  have  begun  with  the 
discovery  of  the  general  causes  in 
question ;  while  from  the  simplest 
reflex  actions,  up  to  the  most  recondite 
I)rocesse9  of  reason  and  t,he  most  im- 
[)erious  dictates  of  conscience,  we  are 
able  to  trace  a  continuity  of  develop- 
ment. A  revelation  of  truth  so  ex- 
tensive as  this  in  the  department  of 
science  which,  in  most  nearly  touch- 
ing the  personality  of  man,  is  of  most 
importance  for  man  to  explore,  can- 
not fail  to  justify  the  anticipations  of 
the  revealer,  who,  in  referring  to 
psychology,  could  "in  the  future  see 
open  fields  for  far  more  important 
researches"  than  those  relating  to 
geology  and  biology.  If  the  proper 
study  of  mankind  is  man,  Mr.  Dak- 
win  has  done  more  than  any  other 
human  being  to  further  the  most  de- 
sirable kind  of  learning,  for  it  is 
through  him  that  humanity  in  our 
generation  has  first  been  able  to  be- 
gin its  response  to  the  precept  of 
antiquity — Know  thyself. 


The  series  of  urief  resumes -whcrGhj 
we  have  endeavored  to  take  a  sort  of 
bird's  eye  view  of  Mr.  Dakwin's  great 
and  many  lai)ors  have  now  drawn  to 
a  close.  l>iit  we  cannot  finish  this 
very  rudimentary  sketch  of  his  work 
witliout  alluding  once  more  to  what 
was  said  in  the  opening  paragraphs 
of  the  series,  and  which  cannot  be 
more  tersely  repeated  than  in  Mr. 
Darwin's  own  words  there  quoted 
with  reference  to  Prof.  Henslow: 
"  Reflecting  over  his  character  with 
gratitude  and  reverence,  his  moral 
attributes  rise,  as  they  should  do  in 
the  highest  character,  in  pre-eminence 
over  his  intellect." 

In  the  gratitude  and  reverence 
which  Ave  feel  in  a  measure  never  to  be 
expressed,  we  sometimes  regret  that 
the  ill-health  which  led  to  his  seclusion 
prevented  the  extraordinary  beauty  of 
his  character  from  being  more  gen- 
erally known  by  personal  intercourse. 
True  it  is  that  the  world  has  shown 
in  a  wonderful  degree  a  just  apprecia- 
tion of  this  character,  so  that  many 
thousands,  in  many  nations,  who  had 
never  even  seen  the  man,  heard  that 
CiiARi.Ks  Darwix  was  dead  with  a 
shock  like  that  which  follows  such  an 
announcement  in  the  case  of  a  well- 
loved  friend  ;  still  it  seems  almost  sad 
that  when  such  an  exalted  character 
has  lived,  it  should  only  have  been  to 
so  comparatively  few  of  us  that  the  lasts 
farewell  over  the  open  grave  at  West- 
minster implied  a  severance  of  feel- 
ings which  had  never  been  formed 
before,  and  which,  while  ever  living 
among  the  most  hallowed  lights  of 
memory,  we  know  too  well  can  never 
be  formed  again.  But  to  those  of  us 
who  have  now  to  mourn  so  unspeaka- 
ble a  loss,  it  is  some  consolation  to 
think,  while  much  that  was  sweetest 
and  much  that  was  noblest  in  our  lives 
has  ended  in  that  death,  his  great  life 
and  finished  work  still  stand  before 
our  view;  and  in  regarding  them  vre 
may  almost  bring  our  hearts  to  cry — 
Not  for  him,  but  for  ourselves,  we 
weep. 


Alexander  von  Humboldt.^ 


By   LOUIS  AGASSIZ. 


I  am  invited  to  an  unwonted  task. 
Thus  far  I  have  appeared  before  the 
public  only  as  a  teacher  of  Natural 
History.  To-day,  for  the  first  time  in 
my  life,  I  leave  a  field  in  which  I  am 
at  home,  to  take  upon  myself  the 
duties  of  a  biographer.  If  I  succeed 
at  all,  it  will  be  because  I  so  loved 
and  honored  the  man  whose  memoiy 
brings  us  together. 

Al.KXANDEU     VON     HuMBOLDT     WaS 

born  in  Berlin  in  1769, — one  hundred 
years  ago  this  day, — in  that  fertile 
year  wliich  gave  birth  to  Napoleon, 
Wklmnoton,  Canning,  Cuvier, 
Chateaubriand,  and  so  many  other 
remarkable  men.  All  America  was 
then  the  property  of  European  mon- 
archs.  The  first  throb  of  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution  had  not  yet  disturbed 
the  relations  of  the  mother  country 
and  her  colonies.  Spain  held  Florida, 
Mexico,  and  the  greater  part  of  South 
America;  France  owned  Louisiana; 
and  all  Brazil  was  tributary  to  Por- 
tugal. What  stupendous  changes 
have  taken  place  since  that  time  in 
the  political  world  !  Divine  right  of 
possession  was  then  the  recognized 
law  on  which  governments  were  based. 
A  mighty  Republic  has  niiice  been 
born,  the  fundamental  principle  of 
which  is  self-government.  Progress 
in  the  intellectual  world,  the  world  of 
thought,  has  kept  pace  with  the  ad- 
vance of  civil  liberty ;  reference  to 
authority  has  been  superseded  by  free 
inquiry;  and  liuMBOi.ur  was  one  of 
the   great    leaders    in    this    onAvard 


*  An  address  delivered  at  the  Centennial 
Anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Alexander  von 
Humboldt,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Boston 
Society  of  Natural  History,  (Sept.  14,  1869). 


movement.  lie  bravely  fought  the 
battle  for  independence  of  thought 
against  the  tyranny  of  authority. 
No  man  impressed  his  century  intel- 
lectually more  powerfully,  perhaps  no 
man  so  powerfully  as  he.  Therefore 
he  is  so  dear  to  the  Germans,  with 
whom  many  nations  unite  to  do  him 
honor  to-day.  Nor  is  it  alone  be- 
cause of  what  he  has  done  forscience, 
or  for  anyone  department  of  research, 
that  we  feel  grateful  to  him,  but 
rather  because  of  that  breadtli  and 
comprehensiveness  of  knowledge 
which  lifts  whole  communities  to 
higher  levels  of  culture,  and  impres- 
ses itself  upon  the  unlearned  as  well 
as  upon  students  and  scholars. 

To  what  degree  we  Americans  are 
indebted  to  him,  no  one  knows  who  is 
not  familiar  with  the  history  of  learn- 
ing and  education  in  the  last  century. 
All  the  fundamental  facta  of  popular 
education  in  physical  science,  beyond 
the  merest  elementary  instruction,  wo 
owe  to  him.  We  are  reaping  daily 
in  every  school  throughout  this  broad 
land,  where  education  is  the  heritage 
even  of  the  poorest  child,  the  intellec- 
tual harvest  sown  by  him.  Sec  this 
map  of  the  United  States  ; — all  its 
important  traits  are  based  upon  his  in- 
vestigations ;  for  he  first  recognized 
the  essential  relations  which  unite  the 
physical  features  of  the  globe,  the 
laws  of  ^climate  on  which  the  whole 
system  of  insothermal  lines  is  based, 
the  relative  height  of  mountain  chains 
and  tablelands,  the  distribution  of 
vegetation  over  the  whole  earth. 
There  is  not  a  text-book  of  geography 
or  a  school-atlas  in  the  hands  of  our 
children  to-day  which  does  not  bear. 


28  [332] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


however    blurred    and    defaced,  the 
impress  of  his  great  mind.     But  for 
him  our  geographies  would   be  mere 
euumerations  of  localities  and  statist- 
ics.    He  first  suggested    the  graphic 
methods  of  representing  natural  phe- 
nomena which    are   now    universally 
adopted.     The   first    geological  sec- 
tions,   the   first    sections    across    an 
entire    continent,  the   fir.st   averages 
of  climate  illustrated  by  lines,  were 
his.     Every    school-boy    is    familiar 
with     his     methods     now,    but    he 
does   not    know   that   Humboldt    is 
his  teacher.     The  fertilizing  power  of 
a  great  mind  is  truly  wonderful  ;  but 
as  we  travel  farther  from  the  source, 
it    is   hidden    from  us    by   the   very 
abundance  and  productiveness  it  has 
caused.     Plow  few  remember  that  the 
tidal  lines,  the  present  mode  of  reg- 
istering   magnetic    phenomena    and 
oceanic  currents,  are  but  the  applica- 
tion of  Hl'mboldt's  researches,  and  of 
his  graphic  mode  of  recording  them ! 
This  great  man  was  a  feeble  child, 
and   had   less  facility   in  his  studies 
than  most  children.     For  this  reason 
his  early  education  was  intrusted  to 
private   teachers,  his   parents    being 
wealthy,  and  of  a  class  whose  means 
and  position  command  tlie  advantages 
denied  to  so  many.     It  is  worthy  of 
note  that  when  he  was  a  little  fellow, 
not  more    than    seven    years   old,  his 
teacher  was   Campk,    author    of   the 
German  llobinson  Crusoe.     We  can 
fancy   how   he   amused  the  boy  with 
the  ever  fresh  story  of  Crusoe  on  his 
desert  island,  and  inspired  him  even 
at  that  early  age  with  the  passionate 
love  of  travel   and    adventure  which 
was  to  bear  such  fruit  in  later  years. 
Neither  should  we  omit,  in  recalling 
memories  of  his  childhood,  his  tender 
relation  to  his  older  brother  Wk.mam. 
These  two  brothers,  so  renowned   in 
their  different  departments    of  learn- 
ing,— the  elder  as  statesman  and  phi- 
lologist, the   younger  as  a  student  of 
nature, — were  united   from  their  ear- 
liest years  by  an  intimate    sym})dthy 
which  grew  with    their   growth    and 
strengthened    with     tlieir     strength. 
They  went  together  to  the  University 


I  of  Frankfort,  the  younger  being  then 
I  seventeen,  Wilmam  nineteen.  After 
;  two  years  at  Frankfort  they  went  to 
!  the  University  of  Gottingen,  where 
J  they  passed  the  two  following  years. 
j  In  these  four  pregnant  years  of  stu- 
[  dent  life  At,kxani>i-:r  already  sketched 
the  plans  Avhich  occupied  his  active 
I  mind  for  more  than  threescore  years 
and  ten. 

The     character    of     the     German 
universities  is  so  different  from  ours, 
that  a  word  upon  his  studentlife  may 
not  be  out  of  place  here.   Untrammel- 
ed  by  prescription  and  routine,  every 
branch  of  learniiig  was  open  to  him. 
Instead  of   being  led   through  a  pre- 
scribed  course  of  study,  an  absolute 
freedom  of   selection    in    accordance 
Avith   his   natural   predilections    was 
allowed   him.     The  effect  of   this  is 
j  felt  through  his  whole  life  ;  there  was 
I  a   universality,  a   comprehensiveness 
I  in    his   culture,  which  could   not  be 
j  obtained  under   a  less  liberal  system 
j  of  education. 

Leaving  the  University  at  the  age 
of  twenty-one,  he  began  to  make 
serious  j)reparations  for  the  great 
journeys  toward  which  all  his  hopes 
tended.  Nothing  has  impressed  me 
more  in  reviewing  Humboldt's  life, 
than  the  harmony  between  the  aspira- 
tions of  his  youth  and  the  fulfillment 
of  his  riper  age.  A  letter  to  Pfafk, 
written  in  his  twenty-fourth  year, 
contains  the  first  outline  of  the  Cos- 
mos ;  its  last  sheets  were  forwarded 
to  the  publisher  in  his  ninetieth  year, 
two  months  before  his  death.  He 
had  thus  been  an  original  investigator 
for  nearly  seventy  years. 

His  first  journey  after  leaving  the 
University  was  important  rather  for 
the  circumstances  under  which  it 
was  made  than  for  any  local  interest. 
He  went  to  the  Ilhine  with  Gkok(t 
FoRSTKK,  who  had  accompanied  Cook 
in  his  second  journey  round  the 
world.  He  could  hardly  have  been 
thrown  with  any  one  more  likely  to 
stimulate  his  desire  to  travel  than 
this  man,  who  had  visited  the  South 
Seas,  had  seen  the  savages  of  the 
Pacific  Islands,  and  had  made  valuable 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT, 


[338]  29 


contributions  to  geographical  science. 
Nor  was  this  their  only  point  of 
sympathy.  Georg  P"'orster  was  a 
warm  republican ;  lie  had  espoused 
the  ideas  of  the  French  Kevohition, 
and  when  Mayence  became  united  to 
the  French  Republic  he  was  sent  as 
deputy  to  the  National  Assembly  in 
Paris.  Humboldt  Avas  too  ardent 
and  too  independent  to  be  a  laggard 
in  the  great  public  questions  of  the 
day.  Like  Fokster,  he  also  believed 
in  the  Republic  of  France  and  in  the 
dawn  of  civil  liberty  for  Europe, 
Thus,  both  in  political  and  scientific 
preferences,  although  so  different  in 
age,  he  ar.d  Forster  were  sympa- 
thetic traveling  companions.  This 
excursion  was  by  no  means  a  pleasure 
trip.  Young  as  he  was,  Humboldt 
had  knowledge  enough  to  justify  him 
in  approaching  the  most  dilHcult 
geological  question  of  the  day,  namely, 
the  origin  of  the  Basalt.  At  that 
time  the  great  war  was  waging  be- 
tween the  Neptunists  and  Phitonists, 
— that  is,  between  the  two  great 
schools  in  Geology, — one  attributing 
the  rocks  to  fire  as  the  great  con- 
structive agent,  the  other  asserting 
that  all  rocks  were  the  result  of  water 
deposits.  The  young  student  brought 
to  these  subjects  the  truthfulness  and 
patience  which  marked  all  his  later 
investigations.  Carried  away  neither 
by  theories  nor  by  leaders,  he  left  in 
abeyance  the  problem  which  seemed  j 
to  him  not  yet  solved.  His  interest 
in  this  and  kindred  topics  carried  him  j 
to  Freiberg,  where  he  studied  Geol-  j 
ogy  with  Werner,  and  where  he  | 
made  acquaintance  with  Leopold 
VON  BucH,  who  became  the  greatest 
geologist  of  the  age,  and  was  through 
life  his  trusted  friend.  He  also 
applied  himself  to  Anatomy  and 
Physiology,  and  made  physical  in- 
vestigations on  the  irritability  of  the 
muscular  fiber,  which  he  afterward 
extended  to  the  electric  fishes,  during 
his  American  journey. 

All  the  while  he  brooded  over  his 
schemes  of  travel,  gathering  materials 
in  every  direction,  in  order  that  his 
mind  might  be  prepared  to  understand 


j  Nature  in  all  her  aspects.  His  desires 
j  turned  especially  toward  India.  He 
I  wished  to  visit  the  East,  and,  reach- 
ing India  by  way  of  Egypt,  Syria, 
and  Persia,  to  cross  the  Pacific  "and 
return  to  Europe  through  America. 
In  this  he  was  foiled ;  but  to  his 
latest  day  he  felt  the  same  longing 
for  a  sight  of  that  antique  ground  o^ 
civilization.  At  this  moment  all 
Europe  was  in  a  blaze;  between  con- 
tending armies  there  was  little  room 
for  peaceful  travel  and  investigation. 
We  find  him,  therefore,  floating  be- 
tween various  plans.  He  went  to 
Paris  with  the  hope  of  joining  Bau- 
din's  contemplated  expedition  to 
Australia.  In  this  he  was  again 
battled,  for  the  breaking  out  ofthe 
war  between  France  and  Austria 
postponed  the  undertaking  indefinite- 
ly. Plis  next  hope  was  Spain  ;  he 
might  obtain  permission  to  visit  her 
Transatlantic  possessions  and  study 
tropical  nature  under  the  equator. 
Here  he  was  successful.  The  scientific 
discoverer  of  America,  as  the  Germans 
like  to  call  him,  was  destined  to  start 
from  the  same  shore  as  Christopher 
Columbus.  He  not  only  received  per- 
mission to  visit  the  colonies,  but 
special  facilities  for  his  investigations 
were  offered  him.  This  liberality  was 
unexampled  on  the  part  of  the  Spanish 
government,  for  in  those  days  Spain 
guarded  her  colonies  with  jealous 
exclusiveness.  His  enthusiasm  dis- 
armed suspicion,  however,  and  the 
king  cordially  sustained  his  under- 
taking. 

Almost  ten  years  had  passed  in 
maturing  his  plans,  preparing  himself 
for  their  execution  and  obtaining  the 
means  of  carrying  them  out.  •  He  was 
nearly  thirty  years  of  age  Avhen  he 
sailed  from  the  harbor  of  Corunna, 
running  out  in  a  dark  and  stormy 
night,  and  so  evading  the  English 
cruisers  which  then  blockaded  the 
Spanish  coast. 

There  is  perhaps  no  part  of  Hum- 
boldt's life  better  known  to  the 
public,  especially  in  this  country, 
than  his  American  journey.  His 
fascinating  "Personal  Narrative"  ie 


30  [334] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


known  to  all,  and  I  need  not,  there- 
fore, describe  liis  course,  or  dwell 
upon  the  details  of  his  personal  ex- 
perience. No  period  of  his  life,  how- 
ever, has  had  amore  powerful  influence 
upon  knowledge  and  education  than 
those  live  years  of  travel,  and  there- 
fore I  will  speak  at  some  length  of 
their  scientific  results.  In  the  very 
glory  of  his  youth,  and  yet  with  an 
intellectual  maturity  which  belongs  to 
later  manhood,  his  physical  activity 
and  endurance  kept  pace  with  the 
fertility  and  comprehensiveness  of  his 
mind.  Never  was  the  old  proverbial 
wish,  '■'•  iSijemiesse  savait,  sivieillesse 
pouvait,^''  so  near  fulfillment ;  never 
were  the  strength  of  youth  and  the 
knowledge  of  age  so  closely  com- 
bined. 
/  At  the  first  step  of  the  journey, 
/  namely,  his  pause  at  the  Oanaiy 
Islands  and  ascension  of  the  Peak  of 
Teneriffe,  he  has  left  us  a  graphic 
picture  of  the  place,  of  its  volcanic 
phenomena,  its  geological  character, 
and  the  distribution  of  its  vegetation, 
in  whicii  are  foreshadowed  all  his 
later  generalizations.  Landing  in 
Cumana  he  made  his  first  long  station 
there.  His  explorations  of  the 
mountains,  valleys,  and  sea-shore  in 
that  neighbborhood,  his  geological 
researches,  liis  astronomical  observa- 
tions by  which  the  exact  position  of 
various  localities  was  determined,  his 
meteorological  investigations,  and  his 
collections  of  every  kind,  were  of  vast 
scientific  importance.  lie  had  already 
begun  his  studies  upon  averages  of 
climate,  the  result  of  which,  known 
as  the  "  isothermal  lines,"  was  one  of 
his  most  original  contributions  to 
science.  With  the  intuition  of  genius 
he  saw  that  the  distribution  of  tem- 
]jerature  obeyed  certain  laws.  He 
collected,  both  from  his  own  observa- 
tion and  from  report,  all  that  could' 
be  learned  of  the  average  temperature 
in  various  localities,  and  combining 
all  these  facts  he  first  taught  geogra 
phers  how  to  trace  upon  their  maps 
those  curves  which  give  in  one  un- 
dulating line  the  varying  aspects  of 
climate  upon  the  whole  globe.     His  ' 


physical  experiments  upon  animals 
and  plants,  and  his  cqllectious  were 
also  of  great  value.  At  Paris  he  had 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Boni'land, 
a  young  botanist,  equally  determined 
with  liimself  to  see  distant  lands,  who 
accompanied  him  in  his  journey  to 
South  America ;  and  when  Hum- 
boldt was  too  exclusively  engaged  in 
physical  experiments  to  join  in  the 
botanical  researches,  they  were  never- 
theless not  neglected,  for  Bonpi.and 
was  unremitting  in  the  study  of  plants 
and  in  making  collections. 

After  months  thus  spent  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  coast,  Humboldt 
crossed  the  Llanos,  the  great  plains 
Avhich  divide  the  basin  of  the  Orinoco 
from  the  sea  shore.  Here  again  every 
step  of  his  journey  is  marked  by  orig- 
inal research.  He  has  turned  those 
desert  plains  into  enchanted  land  by 
the  power  of  his  thought,  and  left  us 
descriptions,  as  fascinating  from  their 
beauty  as  they  are  valuable  for  their 
novelty  and  precision.  In  his  long 
and  painful  journey  through  the  valley 
of  the  Orinoco  he  traced  the  singular 
network  of  rivers  by  which  this 
great  stream  connects,  through  the 
Cassiquiare  and  the  Rio  Negro,  with 
the  Amazons, — a  fresh-water  route 
which  is,  no  doubt,  yet  to  become  one 
of  the  highways  of  the  world.  Had 
it  not  been  for  the  illiberality  of  the 
Portuguese  government,  he  would 
probably  have  gone  down  the  Kio 
Negro  to  the  Amazons,  and  would 
perliaps  have  changed  completely  the 
course  which  he  ultimately  took.  He 
was,  however,  turned  back  from  the 
mighty  river  by  a  prohibition  which 
made  it  dangerous  to  proceed  farther 
on  pain  of  imprisonment  and  the 
possible  renunciation  of  all  his  cher- 
ished plans.  When,  in  ray  late  ex- 
ploration of  the  Amazonian  Valley,  I 
read  his  narrative  again,  on  the  spot, 
I  could  not  but  contrast  the  cordial 
liberality  which  smoothed  every  dif- 
ficult}''  in  my  path  with  the  dangers, 
obstacles,  and  suffering  which  beset 
his.  I  approached,  however,  so  near 
the  scene  of  his  labors  that  I  was 
constantly  able  to  compare  my  results 


DARWIN  AND    HUMBOLDT 


p35J  81 


with  his,  and  to  recognize  the  extent 
of  his  knowledge  and  the  comprehen- 
siveness of  his  views,  even  where  the 
progress  of  science  led  to  a  different 
interpretation  of  the  facts. 

I  omit  all  notice  of  his  visit  to 
Cuba,  and  his  journey  through  Mexico, 
interesting  as  they  were,  remarking 
only  that  to  him  we  owe  the  first 
accurate  maps  of  those  regions.  So 
imperfect  were  those  published  before 
him,  that  even  toward  the  close  of 
the  last  century  the  position  of  Mexico 
differed  by  about  three  hundred  miles 
in  the  maps  published  by  different 
geographers.  Humboldt's  is  the  first 
general  map  of  Mexico  and  Cuba 
based  upon  astronomical  observa- 
tions. 

The  next  great  stage  of  the  Amer- 
ican journey  is  along  the  ridge  of  the 
Andes.  There  is  a  picturesque  charm 
about  this  part  of  the  undertaking 
which  is  irresistible.  At  that  time 
traveling  in  those  mountains  was 
infinitely  more  difficult  than  it  is 
now.  Wo  follow  him  with  his  train 
of  mules,  bearing  the  most  delicate 
Instruments,  the  most  precious  scien- 
tific apparatus,  through  the  passes  of 
the  great  chain.  Measuring  the 
mountains, — sounding  the  valleys  as 
he  went, — tracing  the  distribution  of 
Tegetation  on  slopes  20,000  feet  high, 
-—examining  extinct  and  active  volca- 
noes,— collecting  and  drawing  animals 
and  plants, — he  brought  away  an  in- 
credible amount  of  information  which 
iias  since  filtered  into  all  our  scien- 
tific records,  remodeled  popular 
education,  and  become  the  common 
property  of  the  civilized  world.  Many 
of  these  ascensions  were  attendeil 
••-fith  infinite  danger  and  ditficulty. 
He  climbed  Chimborazo  to  a  height 
of  18,000  feet  at  a  time  when 
no  other  man  had  ever  ascended  so 
iar  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  was 
prevented  from  reaching  the  summit 
by  an  impassable  chasm,  in  which  he 
nearly  lost  his  life.  When,  a  few 
years  later,  Gay  Lussac  made  his 
famous  ascent  in  a  balloon,  for 
the  sake  of  studying  atmospheric 
j)heuomena,  he   rose  only  1,200  feet 


heigher.*  Returning  from  the  An- 
des, Humboldt  skirted  the  Pacific 
from  Truxillo  to  Acapulco,  and  paused 
in  Mexico  again.  There  he  ascended 
all  the  great  mountains  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, continuing  and  completing 
the  same  investigations  which  he  had 
pursued  with  such  persistency  through 
his  whole  laborious  journey.  He 
studied  volcanic  action,  mines,  the 
production  of  precious  metals,  their 
influence  upon  civilization  and  com- 
merce, latitudes  and  longitudes,  aver- 
ages of  climate,  relative  heights  of 
mountains,  distribution  of  vegetation, 
astronomical  and  meteorological  phe- 
nomena. From  Mexico  he  went  to 
Havana,  and  from  Havana  sailed  for 
Philadelphia.  His  stay  in  this  country 
was  short.  He  was  cordially  received 
by  Jefkkrson  on  his  visit  to  Wash- 
ington, and  warmly  welcomed  by 
scientific  men  in  Philadelphia.  But 
ho  made  no  important  researches  in 
the  United  States,  and  sailed  for 
Europe  soon  after  his  arrival. 

He  returned  to  Paris  in  1804,  hav- 
ing been  five  years  absent  from 
Europe.  It  was  a  brilliant  period 
in  science,  letters,  and  politics  in  the 
great  capital.  The  Ue})ublic  was  still 
in  existence  ;  the  throes  of  Revolu- 
tion were  over,  and  the  reaction  to- 
ward monarchical  ideas  had  not  yet 
culminated  in  the  Empire.  Laplace, 
Gay-Lussac,  CuviKit,  Deskontainks, 
Dklambue,  Oltmanns,  Foukckoy, 
Bkkthollet,  Biot,  Dolomiku,  La- 
marck, and  Lacei'F.de  were  leaders 
then  in  the  learned  world.  Tiie  young 
traveler,  bringing  intellectual  and 
material  treasures  even  to  men  who 
had  grown  old  in  research,  was  wel- 
comed by  all,  and  iu  this  great  centre 
of  social  and intellectuariife  he  niaile 
his  home  for  the  most  }>art,  from  1805 
to  1827 ;  from  the  last  days  of  the 
Republic,  through  the  rise  and  fall  of 


*  The  ascension  of  Mont  Ulanc  by  De 
Saussure  was  t!)e  only  exploit  of  that  Und  on 
record  before.  Even  as  late  as  1842  the  ascent 
of  the  Junjjfrau  attracted  some  attention. 
Nowadays  tourists  may  run  up  the  highest 
summits  of  the  Alps  to  drink  the  healtii  of 
their  friends. 


32  [33G] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT, 


the  Empire,  to  the  restoration  of  the 
Bourbons.     lie  devoted  himself  to  the 
publication  of  liis  results,  and  secured 
as  his  collaborators  in  this  work  the 
ablest  men  of  the  day.     Cuvier,  La- 
TREiixE,  and   Valenciennes  worked 
up   the   zoological    collections,  Box- 
PLAND  and  KuNTii  directed  the  publica- 
tion of  the   botanical  treasures,  Olt- 
MANNS  undertook  the  reduction  of  the 
astronomical    and    barometrical    ob- 
servations, while   he   himself  jointly 
with    Gay-Lussao    and    Provencal 
made  investigations  upon  the  respira- 
tion of  fishes  and  upon  the  chemical 
constitution   of  the  atmosphere  and 
the  composition  of  water,  which  have 
left  their  mark  in  the  annals  of  chem- 
istry.    While  of  course  superintend- 
ing more  or  less  all  the  publications, 
HrMBOi.DT  himself  was  engaged  espe- 
cially   with     those     upon     physical 
geography,  meteorology,  and  geology. 
The  mere  enumeration  of  the  volumes 
resulting  from  this   great  expedition 
is  impressive.  It  embraces  three  folio 
volumes  of  geographical,  })hysical,  and 
botanical    maps,    including    scenery, 
antiquities,  and  the  aboriginal  races  ; 
twelve  quarto  volumes  of  letter-press, 
three  of  which  contain  the  personal 
narrative,  two  are   devoted  to  New 
Spain,  two  to  Cuba,  two  to  zoology 
and    comparative    anatomy,  two   to 
astronomy,  and  one  to  a  physical  de- 
scription of  the  tropics.    The  botanic- 
al results  of  the  journey  occupy  not 
less    than     thirteen     folio    volumes, 
ornamented  with  magnificent  colored 
})late8.     As  all  these  works  are  in  our 
Public   Library « in   Boston,  I   would 
invite  my  hearers  to  a  real  intellectual 
treat    and    a    gi-atification    of    their 
{esthetic  tastes,   in   urging   them   to 
devote  some  leisure  hour  to  turning 
over  the   leaves  of   these  magnificent 
volumes.     A  walk   through  the  hot^ 
houses  of  the  largest  botanical  garden 
— and  unfortunately  we  have  no  such 
on  this   continent-— could   hardly    be 
more  impressive  than  an  examination 
of    these   beautiful    plates.     Add  to 
these  a  special  work  on  the  position 
of  rocks  in  the  two  hemis})heres,  one 
on  the  isothermal  lines,  his  innumera- 


ble smaller  papers,  and  lastly,  five 
volumes  on  the  history  of  geography 
and  the  progress  of  nautical  astronomy 
during  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries,  more  or  less  directly  con- 
nected with  Humboldt's  own  journey, 
though  published  in  later  years.  His 
investigations  into  the  history  of  the 
discovery  of  America  have  a  special  in- 
terest for  us.  We  learn  from  him  that 
the  name  of  our  continent  was  first 
introduced  into  the  learned  world  by 
Waltz EEMULLER,  a  German  profes- 
sor, settled  at  St.  Didie,  in  Lorraine, — 
Hylacomylus,  as  he  called  himself  at 
a  time  when  scholars  were  wont  ta 
translate  their  names  into  the  dead 
languages,  and  thought  it  more  digni- 
fied to  appear  under  a  Greek  or 
Latin  garb.  This  cosmographer 
published  the  first  map  of  the  New 
World,  with  an  account  of  the  jour- 
neys of  Americus  Vespucci,  whose 
name  he  affixed  to  the  lands  recently 
discovered.  Humboldt  shows  us, 
also,  that  Columbus's  discovery  was 
no  accident,  but  grew  naturally  out 
of  the  speculations  of  the  time,  them- 
selves the  echo  of  a  far-off  dream, 
which  he  follows  back  into  the  dim- 
ness of  Grecian  antiquity.  We  rec- 
ognize again  here  the  characteristic 
features  of  Humboldt's  mind,  in  hie 
constant  endeavor  to  trace  discoveries 
through  all  the  stages  of  their  pro- 
gress. 

Although  he  made  his  head-quarters 
in  Paris,  it  became  necessary  for 
Humboldt,  during  the  preparation  of 
so  many  extensive  works,  to  under- 
take journeys  in  various  parts  of 
Europe ;  to  examine  and  re-examine 
Vesuvius,  and  compare  its  mode  of 
action,  its  geological  constitution,  and 
the  phenomena  of  its  ernptions  with 
what  he  had  seen  of  the  volcanoes  of 
South  America.  On  one  of  these  oc- 
casions he  ascended  Vesuvius  in  com- 
pany with  Gay-Lussac  and  Leopold 
VON  J)UCH.  That  single  excursion, 
undertaken  by  such  men,  was  fruitful 
in  valuable  additions  to  knowledge. 
At  other  times  he  went  to  consult  rare 
books  in  the  great  libraries  of  Ger- 
many and  England,  or  to  discuss  with 


DARWIN    AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[337]  33 


his  brother  in  Berlin,  or  with  trusted 
friends  in  other  parts  of  Europe,  the 
work  in  which  he  was  engaged, 
comparing  notes,  assisting  at  new  ex- 
periments, suggesting  further  in 
quiries,  ever  active,  ever  inventive, 
ever  suggestive,  ever  fertile  in  resource, 
— neither  disturbed  by  the  great  po 
litical  commotions  which  he  witness- 
ed, nor  tempted  from  his  engrossing 
labors  by  the  most  brilliant  offers  of 
public  service  or  exalted  position.  It 
was  during  one  of  his  first  visits  to 
Berlin,  where  he  went  to  consult 
about  the  organization  of  the  Univers- 
ity with  his  brother  William,  then 
Minister  of  State  in  Prussia,  that  he 
published  those  fascinating  '"Views 
of  Nature,"  in  which  he  has  given  pic- 
tures of  the  tropics  as  vivid  and  as  ex- 
citing to  the  imagination  as  if  they  liv- 
ed on  the  canvas  of  some  great  artist^ 
v^The  question  naturally  arises.  Who 
provided  for  the  expenses  of  these 
extensive  literary  undertakings  ? 
Humboldt  himself.  No  one  knows 
exactly  what  he  spent  in  the  pub- 
licacion  of  his  works.  Some  ap- 
proach to  an  estimate  may,  however, 
be  made  by  computing  the  cost  of 
printing,  paper,  and  engraving,  which 
cannot  have  amounted  to  less  than 
two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars. No  doubt  the  sale  indemnified 
him  in  some  degree,  but  all  know 
that  such  publications  do  not  pay. 
The  price  of  a  single  copy  of  the 
complete  work  on  America  is  two 
thousand  dollars, — double  that  of  the 
great  national  work  published  by 
France  upon  Egypt,  for  the  publica- 
tion of  which  the  government  spent 
about  eight  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
Of  course  veiy  few  copies  can  be 
sold  of  a  work  «f  this  magnitude. 
But  from  his  youth  upward  Hum- 
boldt spent  his  private  means  liber- 
ally, not  only  for  the  carrying  out 
and  subsequent  publication  of  his 
own  scientific  undertakings,  but  to 
forward  the  work  of  younger  and 
poorer  men.  The  consequence  was 
that  in  old  age  he  lived  upon  a  small 
pension  granted  to  him  by  the  King 
of  Prussia. 


His  many-sideness  was  remarkable. 
He  touched  life  at  all  points.  He 
was  the  friend  of  artists,  no  less  than 
of  scientific  and  literary  men.  His 
desire  to  make  his  illubtrations  worthy 
of  the  great  objects  they  were  to 
represent  brought  him  into  constant 
and  intimate  relation  with  the 
draughtsmen  and  paiLiers  of  his  day. 
Even  David  did  not  think  it  below 
his  dignity  to  draw  an  allegoric  title- 
l^age  for  the  great  work.  He  valued 
equally  the  society  of  intelligent  and 
cultivated  women,  such  as  Madame 
de  Stael,  Madame  Recamier,  Raiiei, 
Bettina,  and  many  others  less  known 
to  fame.  He  was  intimate  with  states- 
men, politicians,  and  men  of  the  world. 
Indeed,  the  familiarity  of  Humboldt 
with  the  natural  resources  of  the  coun- 
tries he  had  visited, — with  their  min- 
eral products  and  precious  metals, — 
made  his  opinion  valuable  not  only  in 
matters  of  commerce,  but  important 
also  to  the  governments  of  Europe ; 
and  after  the  colonies  of  South  Amer- 
ica had  achieved  their  independence, 
the  allied  powers  of  Europe  invited 
him  to  make  a  report  upon  the  po- 
litical condition  of  the  new  republics. 
In  1822  he  attended  the  Congress  of 
Verona,  and  visited  the  South  of  Italy 
with  the  King  of  Prussia  Thus  his 
life  was  associated  with  the  political 
growth  and  independence  of  the  New 
World,  as  it  was  intimately  allied 
with  the  literary,  scientific,  and  artist- 
ic interests  of  the  Old.  He  never, 
however,  took  an  active  part  in  pol- 
itics at  home,  and  yet  all  Germany 
looked  upon  him  as  identified  with  the 
as[)ii-ations  of  the  liberal  party,  of 
which  his  brother  William  was  the 
most  jtrominent  representative. 

Before  closing  this  period  of  Hum- 
boldt's life  I  would  add  a  few  words 
more  in  detail  upon  the  works  pub- 
lished by  him  after  his  return  from 
South  America.  One  of  the  first 
fruits  in  the  rich  harvest  reaped  from 
this  expedition  was  the  successful 
attempt  to  which  I  have  alread/ 
alluded  at  representing  graphically 
the  physical  features  of  that  con- 
tinent. Thus  far  such  representations 


34  [338] 


DARWIN   AND   HUMBOLDT. 


had  mainly  consisted  in  maps  and  the 
delineation  of  the  characteristic  plants 
and  animals.  Humboldt  devised  a 
new  method,  equally  impressive  to 
the  eye  and  comprehensive  in  its  out- 
lines. Impressed  by  the  fact  that 
vegetation  changes  its  character  as  it 
ascends  upon  the  side  of  high  mount- 
ains,— thus  presenting  successive  ter- 
races upon  their  slopes, — he  conceived 
the  idea,  already  suggested  by  his  ex- 
amination of  the  Peak  of  Tenei'iffe,  of 
drawing  upon  the  outline  of  a  conical 
mountain  the  different  aspects  of  its 
surface  from  the  level  of  the  sea  to 
its  highest  peak.  Thus  he  could  ex- 
hibit at  a  glance  all  the  successive 
zones  of  vegetation.  Afterward  he 
extended  these  comparisons  to  the 
temperate  and  arctic  zones,  and 
ascertained  that,  as  we  proceed 
further  north,  the  gradation  of  the 
vegetation,  at  the  level  of  the  ocean, 
corresponds  to  its  succession  upon 
mountain  slopes, — until,  toward  the 
Arctics,  it  assumes  a  remarkable 
resemblance  to  the  plants  found  near 
the  line  of  perpetual  snows  under  the 
Tropics.  But  this  is  not  all.  The 
intervening  expanse  from  North  to 
South,  as  far  as  the  equator,  and  then 
in  reverse  order  to  the  Antai-ctic 
regions,  also  exhibits,  in  proportion  to 
the  elevation  of  the  laud,  a  vegetation 
characterized  by  intermediate  forms. 

In  the  same  way  he  reproduced  the 
general  appearance  of  the  inequalities 
of  the  earth's  surface  by  drawing  ideal 
sections  across  the  regions  described. 
In  the  first  place,  through  Spain,  af- 
terward from  La  Guayra  to  Caraccas 
across  the  Curabre,  from  Cartagena 
to  Santa  Fd  de  Bogota,  and  finally 
through  the  whole  continent  of 
America,  from  Acapulco  to  Vera 
Cruz.  And  this  not  by  mere  ap- 
proximations, but  founding  his  pro- 
files upon  his  own  barometric  and 
astronomical  observations,  which  he 
multiplied  to  such  an  extent  that  his 
works  are  to  this  day  the  chief  source 
of  information  concerning  the  physical 
geography  of  the  regions  visited  by 
him. 

Not   satisfied    with  this,  he  under- 


took to  represent,  in  like  manner,  the 
internal  structure  of  the  earth,  draw- 
ing similar  charts  upon  which  the 
relative  position  of  the  rocks,  with 
signs  to  indicate  their  mineralogical 
character,  is  faithfully  portrayed.  The 
first  chart  of  this  kind  was  drawn  by 
him  in  Mexico  in  1804,  and  presented 
to  the  School  of  Mines  of  that  city. 
It  was  afterward  published  in  the 
Atlas  of  the  American  Journey. — We 
are  thus  indebted  to  him  for  the 
whole  of  that  graphic  method  which 
has  made  it  j^ossible  to  delineate,  in 
visible  outlines,  the  true  characterist- 
ics of  physical  phenomena;  for  after- 
ward this  method  was  applied  to  the 
representation  of  the  oceanic  currents, 
the  direction  of  the  prevalent  winds, 
the  tidal  waves,  the  rise  and  fall  of 
our  lakes  and  rivers,  the  amount  of 
rain  falling  upon  differentpartsof  the 
earth's  surface,  the  magnetic  phenom- 
ena, the  lines  of  equal  average  tem- 
perature, the  relative  height  of  our 
plains,  tal>le-lands  and  mountain 
chains,  their  internal  structure,  and 
the  distribution  of  plants  and  animals. 
Even  the  characteristic  features  of 
the  History  of  Mankind  are  now 
tabulated  in  the  same  way  upon  our 
ethnographical  mips,  in  which  the 
distribution  of  the  races,  the  high- 
ways of  navigation  and  commerce, 
the  difference  among  men  as  to  lan- 
guage, culture,  creeds,  nay,  even  the 
records  of  our  census,  the  estimates  of 
the  wealth  of  nations,  down  to  the 
statistics  of  agriculture  and  the  aver- 
ages of  virtue  and  vice,  are  represent- 
ed. In  short,  every  branch  of  mental 
activity  has  been  vivified  by  this 
process,  and  has  undergone  an  entire 
transformation  under  its  influence.  , 

His  paper  upon  the  isothermal  lines 
was  published  in  the  ^^  Memoires  de 
la  Societe  d'Arcueil,'"  a  scientific 
club  to  which,  in  the  beginning  of 
this  century,  the  most  eminent  men 
of  the  age  belonged.  Though  a  mere 
sketch,  the  first  delineation  of  the 
curves  uniting  different  points  of  the 
earth's  surface  which  possess  the 
same  average  annual  temperature  un- 
der varying  latitudes,  exhibits  already 


DARWIN    AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[339]  35 


the  characteristic  features  of  these 
lines,  which  myriads  of  observations 
of  a  later  date  have  only  contirmed. 
No  other  series  of  investigations 
shows,  more  plainly  than  this,  to  what 
accurate  results  an  observer  may 
an-ive,  who  understands  how  to  weigh 
critically  the  meaning  of  his  facts 
however  few  they  may  be. 

The  barometrical  and  astronomical 
observations  upon  Avhich  his  numer- 
ous maps  are  based  were  computed 
and  reduced  to  their  final  form  by  his 
friend  Oltmanns.  They  fill  two  large 
quarto  volumes,  and  amount  to  the 
accurate  determination  of  nearly  one 
thousand  localities.  They  are  not 
taken  at  random,  but  embrace  points 
of  the  highest  importance,  with  ref- 
erence to  the  geographical  distribu- 
tion of  plants  and  animals  and  the 
range  of  agricultural  j^roducts.  Hu.ai- 
COLDT  has  himself  added  an  introduc- 
tion to  this  work  in  which  he  gives 
an  account  of  the  instruments  used 
in  his  observations  and  the  methods 
pursued  by  him  in  his  experiments, 
and  discusses  the  astronomical  refrac- 
tions in  the  torrid  zone. 

y  Thus  the  physical  geography  of 
our  days  is  based  upon  Humboldt's 
investigations.  He  is,  indeed,  the 
founder  of  Comparative  Geography, 
that  all-embracing  science  of  our 
globe,  unfolded  with  a  master  hand 
by  Kakl  Ritter,  and  which  has 
now  its  ablest  representative  in 
our  own  Guyot.  His  correspond- 
ence   with     Bergiiaus    testifies    his 

,  intense  intercbt  in  the  progress  of 
geographical  knosvledge.  To  Hum- 
Bor.DT  this  world  of  ours  is  indeed 
not  only  the  abode  of  man,  it  is  a 
growth  in  the  history  of  the  Universe, 
shaped  according  to  laws,  by  a  long 
process  of  successive  changes,  which 
have  resulted  in  its  prc^>ent  configura- 
tion with  its  mutually  dependent  fea- 
tures. The  work  upon  the  Position 
of  Rocks  in  the  two  hemisphere  tells 
the  history  of  that  growth  as  it  could 
be  told  in  1823,  and  is  of  course  full 
of  gross  anachronisms ;  but  at  the 
same  time  it  exhibits  the  wonderful 
power  of  generalization  and  combina- 


tion which  Humboldt  possessed, — as, 
for  instance,  where  he  says  in  few 
beautiful  words,  fertile  in  consequences 
not  yet  fully  appreciated  by  the  natu_^ 
ralists  of  our  day  :  "  When  we  ex- 
amine the  solid  mass  of  our  planet, 
Ave  perceive  that  the  simple  minerals 
are  found  in  associations  Avhich  are 
everywhere  the  same,  and  that  the 
rocks  do  not  vary,  as  organized  beings 
do,  according  to  the  differences  of 
latitude  or  the  isothermal  lines  under 
which  they  occur  "  ;  thus  contrasting 
in  one  single  phrase  the  Avhole  organic 
Avorld  with  the  inorganic  in  their  essen- 
tial character.  In  practical  geology  Ave 
owe  to  him  the  first  recognition  of  the 
Jurassic  formation.  It  was  he  who 
introduced  into  our  science  those 
happy  expressions,  "geological  ho- 
rizon" and  "independence  of  geological 
formations."  He  also  paved  the  Avay 
for  Elie  de  Beaumont's  determina- 
tion of  the  relative  age  of  mountain 
chains  by  his  discussion  upon  the  direc- 
tion of  stratified  rocks  and  by  the 
parallels  he  dreAv  between  the  age  of 
plutonic  and  sedimentary  formations; 
nor  had  it  escaped  him  that  distant 
florae  and  faunae,  though  of  the  same 
age,  may  be  entirely  different. 

The  collection  of  zoological  and 
anatomical  papers,  in  two  quarto 
volumes,  with  numerous  colored 
plates,  is  full  of  valuable  contributions 
to  the  Natural  History  of  Animals, 
from  his  own  pen,  as  Avell  as  that  of 
his  collaborators.  The  most  remarka- 
ble are  his  description  of  the  Condor, 
Avhich  must  have  delighted  the  French 
zoologists,  who  could  not  fail  to 
compare  it  Avith  the  glowing  pages  of 
their  own  Buffon  ;  his  Synopsis  of  the 
South  American  Monkeys,  rivalling 
the  works  of  Audebert  and  Geoffroy 
St.-Hilaire;  his  account  of  the 
Electric  Eel  and  the  Catfish  throAvn 
out  by  the  burning  volcanoes  of  the 
Andes,  contrasted  with  the  Great 
Natural  History  of  Fishes  by  Lac6- 
pede;  his  paper  on  the  respiration  of 
Crocodiles  and  the  larynx  of  Birds 
and  Crocodiles,  daring  upon  his 
own  ground  the  greatest  anatomist  of 
the  age,  the  immortal  Cuvier.     In- 


36  [340] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


deed,  it  must  have  created  a  pro- 
found sensation  in  tlie  learned  world 
when  a  naturalist,  all  whose  previous 
publications  related  to  ])hysical  sub- 
jects, suddenly  came  forward  as  a 
master  among  masters  in  the  treat- 
ment of  zoological  and  anatomical 
questions. 

The  botanical  works  appeared 
imder  several  titles.  We  have  first 
the  "  Plantes  Equinoxiales"  in  two 
folio  volumes,  with  140  plates,  by 
BoNPLANU ;  the  monograph  of  the 
Melastomacdes  and  that  of  the 
Rhexiees,  in  two  folio  volumes,  with 
120  plates,  also  by  Bonpland  ;  then 
the  Mimosdes  by  KirxTn,  in  one  folio 
volume,  with  60  plates  ;  the  revision 
of  the  Gramineos,  in  one  folio  volume, 
watli  220  plates,  by  Kunth  ;  and 
finally  the  "  Nova  Genera  et  Species 
Plantaruni''''  by  Kuntii,  in  seven 
folio  volumes,  ^vith  700  plates.  Al- 
together thirteen  folio  volumes,  with 
1240  plates,  most  of  which  are  beauti- 
fully colored,  and  remain  unsurpassed 
for  fidelity  of  description  and  fullness 
of  illustration.  Though  the  descriptive 
part  of  these  splendid  volumes  is 
from  the  pen  of  his  fellow- traveler 
Bonpland,  and  his  younger  friend 
Kunth,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  HuMJBOi.DT  had  no  share  in 
their  preparation.  Not  only  did  he 
assiduously  collect  specimens  during 
the  journey,  but  it  was  he  who  made, 
on  tlie  spot,  from  the  living  plant, 
drawings  and  analyses  of  the  most 
remarkable  and  characteristic  trees  ; 
the  general  aspect  of  which  could 
not  be  preserved  in  the  specimens 
gathered  for  the  herbarium.  Besides 
this  there  are  entire  chapters  concern- 
ing the  geographical  distribution  of 
the  most  remarkable  families  of 
plants,  their  pi-operties,  their  uses, 
etc.,  entirely  written  by  Humboldt 
himself.  It  was  he,  also,  who  for  the 
first  time  divided  the  areas  of  the 
regions  he  had  explored  into  botanical 
provinces,  according  to  their  natural 
physical  features ;  thus  distinguishing 
the  Flora  of  New  Andalusia  and 
Venezuela  from  that  of  the  Orinoco 
basin,  that  of  New  Granada,  that  of 


Quito,  that  of  the  Peruvian  Andes, 
and  those  of  Mexico  and  Cuba.  It 
was  he,  also,  who  first  showed  that 
the  whole  Vegetable  Kingdom  con- 
tains, after  all,  but  a  few  distinct 
types,  which  characterize  the  vegeta- 
ble carpet  of  the  earth's  surface,  in 
different  parti  of  the  world  under 
different  latitudes  and  at  different 
heights.  He  closes  one  of  these  ex- 
positions with  a  few  words,  which  I 
cannot  pass  by  without  quoting. 
"  Such  investigations,"  he  says,  "  af- 
ford an  intellectual  enjoyment  and 
foster  a  moral  strength  which  fortify 
us  against  misfortunes,  and  which  no 
human  power  can  overcome  "        y''^^ 

In  1827,  at  the  urgent  solicitafion 
of  his  brother,  Humboldt  transferred 
his  residence  from  Paris  to  Berlin. 
With  this  step  there  opens  a  new  phase 
in  his  life.  Thus  far  he  had  been 
absolutely  independent  of  public  or 
official  position.  Conducting  his 
researches  as  a  private  individual,  if 
he  appeared  before  the  public  at  all, 
it  was  only  in  reading  his  papers  to 
learned  Academies.  Now  he  began 
to  lecture  in  the  University.  In  his 
first  course,  consisting  of  sixty-one 
lectures,  he  sketched  the  physical 
histoiy  of  the  world  in  its  broadest 
outlines, — it  was,  in  truth,  the  pro- 
gramme of  the  Cosmos.  Since  I 
shall  give  an  analysis  of  this  work  in 
its  fitting  place,  I  will  say  nothing  of 
the  lectures  here,  except  that  as  a 
teacher,  he  combined  immense  knowl- 
edge with  simplicity  of  expression, 
avoiding  all  technicalities  not  abso- 
lutely essential  to  the  subject. 

In  the  midst  of  his  lectures  there 
came  to  him  an  invitation  from  the 
Russian  government  to  visit  the 
Russian  provinces  of  Asia.  Nothing 
could  be  more  gratifying  to  a  scien- 
tific man  than  the  terms  in  which  this 
proposition  was  made.  It  was  ex- 
pressly stipulated  by  the  Emperor 
that  he  wished  the  material  advant- 
ages which  might  accrue  from  the 
expedition  to  be  a  secondary  con- 
sideration. Humboldt  was  to  make 
scientific  research  and  the  advance- 
ment of  knowledge  his  first  aim,  and 


DARWIN    AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[341]  37 


he  might  turn  his  steps  in  whatever 
direction  he  chose.  Never  before  had 
any  government  organized  an  ex- 
pedition with  so  little  regard  to  pure- 
ly utilitarian  considerations. 

This  second  great  journey  of  Hum- 
boldt is  connected  with  a  hope  and 
disappointment  of  my  own.  I  was 
then  a  student  in  Munich.  That 
University  had  opened  under  the 
most  brilliant  auspices.  Almost  every 
name  on  the  list  of  professors  was 
also  prominent  in  some  department 
of  science  or  literature.  They  were 
not  men  who  taught  from  text-books 
or  even  read  lectures  made  from  ex- 
tracts of  original  works.  They  were 
themselves  original  investigators, 
daily  contributing  to  the  sum  of 
human  knowledge.     Martius,  Oken, 

DoLUNGER,       SCHELLING,        Fr.       VON 

Baader,  Wagi.er,  Zcccarini,  Fuchs, 
VoGEL,  VON  KoBELL,  werc  our  teach- 
ers. And  they  were  not  only  our 
teachers  but  our  friends.  The  best 
spirit  prevailed  among  the  professors 
and  students.  We  were  often  the 
companions  of  their  walks,  often 
pi'esent  at  their  discussions,  and  when 
we  met  for  conversation  or  to  give 
lectures  among  ourselves,  as  we  con- 
stantly did,  our  professors  were  often 
among  our  listeners,  cheering  and 
stimulating  us  in  all  our  efforts  after 
independent  research. 

My  room  Avas  our  meeting-place, — 
bedroom,  study,  museum,  library, 
lecture-room,  fencing  room, — all  in 
one.  Students  and  professors  used 
to  call  it  the  little  Academy.  Here 
SciiiMPER  and  Braun  for  the  first 
time  discussed  the  laws  of  phyllo- 
taxis,  that  marvelous  rhythmical 
arrangement  of  the  leaves  in  plants 
which  our  great  mathematician  in 
Cambridge  has  found  to  agree  with 
the  periods  of  the  rotation  of  our 
planet.  Among  their  listeners  were 
Professors  Martius  and  Zuccarini  ; 
and  even  Robert  Brown,  while  in 
Munich,  during  a  journey  through 
Germany,  sought  the  acquaintance  of 
these  young  botanists.  Here  for  the 
first  time  did  Michahet.f.es  lay  before 
us  the  results  of  his  exploration  of  the 


Adriatic  and  adjoining  regions.  Here 
Born  exhibited  his  wonderful  pre- 
parations of  the  anatomy  of  the 
Lamper-Eel.  Here  Rudolphi  made 
us  acquainted  with  his  exploration  of 
the  Bavarian  Alps  and  the  shores  of 
the  Baltic.  These  my  fellow  students 
in  Munich  were  a  bright,  promising 
set, — boys  then  in  age,  many  of  whom 
did  not  live  to  make  their  names 
famous  in  the  annals  of  science.  It 
was  in  our  little  Academy  that 
DoLLiNGER,  the  great  master  in 
physiology  and  embryology,  showed 
to  us,  his  students,  before  he  had 
even  given  them  to  the  scientific 
world,  his  Avonderful  preparations 
exhibiting  the  vessels  of  the  villosities 
of  the  alimentary  canal ;  and  here  he 
taught  us  the  use  of  the  microscope 
in  embryological  iuA^estigation.  And 
here  also  the  great  German  anatomist, 
Meckel,  came  to  see  ray  collection 
of  fish  skeletons,  of  which  he  had 
heard  from  Dollinger.  Such  as- 
sociations, of  course,  made  us  ac- 
quainted with  everything  of  import- 
ance which  was  going  on  in  the 
scientific  world.  The  preparations 
of  Humboldt  for  his  Asiatic  journey 
excited  our  deepest  interest,  and  I 
was  filkd  with  a  passionate  desire  to 
accompany  the  expedition  as  an 
assistant. 

General  La  Harpe,  then  residing 
in  Lausanne,  who  had  been  the 
preceptor  of  both  the  Emperors 
Alexander  and  Nicholas  of  Russia, 
and  who  knew  Humboldt  personally, 
was  a  friend  of  my  family,  and  he 
wrote  to  Humboldt  in  my  behalf,  ask- 
ing that  I  might  join  the  expedition 
as  an  assistant.  But  it  was  not  to  be. 
The  preparations  for  the  journey 
were  already  made,  and  Ehrenbero 
and  GusTAv  Rose,  then  professors  at 
the  University  of  Berlin,  were  to  be 
his  traveling  companions.  I  shoidd 
not  mention  the  incident  here,  but 
that,  sl'ght  as  it  was,  it  marks  the 
beginning  of  ray  personal  relation 
with  Humboldt. 

The  incidents  of  Humboldt's  Asi- 
atic journey  are  less  known  to  the 
public  at  large  than  those  of  his  longer 


38  [342] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


American  ramblinga.  Short  aa  it 
was,  however, — for  he  was  absent 
only  nine  months, — he  brought  to 
tlie  undertaking  such  an  amount  of 
collateral  knowledge,  that  its  scijn- 
titic  results  are  of  the  utmost  import- 
ance, and  may  be  considered  as  the 
culmination  of  his  mature  research 
and  comprehensiveness  of  views.  His 
success  was  insured  also  by  the  ample 
preparations  of  the  Russian  govern- 
ment, orders  having  been  given  along 
the  whole  route  to  grant  him  every 
facility.  Descending  the  Volga  to 
Kasan,  and  hence  crossing  to  Ikate- 
rinenburg  over  the  Ural  Mountains, 
he  passed  through  Tobolsk  on  the 
Irtish,  to  Barnaul  on  the  Obi,  and 
reached  the  Altai  Mountains  on  the 
borders  of  China,  thus  penetrating 
into  the  heart  of  Asia.  His  researches 
into  the  physical  constitution  of  what 
was  considered  the  high  table-land  of 
Asia  revealed  the  true  features  of 
that  vast  range  of  mountains.  Touch- 
ed by  his  cultivated  genius,  the  most 
insignificant  facts  became  fruitful, 
and  gave  him  at  once  a  clew  to  the 
real  character  of  the  land.  The 
presence  of  fruit-trees  and  other 
plants,  belonging  to  families  not 
known  to  occur  in  elevated  regions, 
led  him  to  distrust  the  existence  of 
an  unbroken,  high,  cold  table-land, 
extending  over  the  whole  of  Central 
Asia,  and  by  a  diligent  comparison  of 
all  existing  documents  on  the  sub- 
ject, combined  with  his  own  observa- 
tions, he  showed  that  four  great  par- 
allel mountain  ridges,  separated  by 
gradually  higher  and  higher  level 
grounds,  extend  in  an  east- westerly 
direction.  First,  the  Altai,  bordering 
on  the  plains  of  Siberia,  from  the 
northern  slope  of  which  descend  all 
the  great  rivers  flowing  into  the  Arctic 
Ocean, — as  the  Irtish  with  the  Obi, 
the  Jenisei  and  the  Lena  ;  then  the 
Thian-Shan,  south  of  the  plateau  of 
Soongaria  ;  next,  the  Kuenlun,  south 
of  the  plateau  of  Tartary  ;  finally,  the 
Himalaya  range,  separating  the  i)la- 
teau  of  Thibet  from  the  plains  of  the 
Ganges.  He  showed  also  the  con- 
nection of  the  Himalaya  Mountaiiis 


through  the  Ilindoo-koo  and  the  De- 
mavend  with  the  far-off  range  of  the 
Caucasus.  These  east-westerly  ranges, 
giving   form   and    character   to   the 
continent  of  Asia,  are  then  contrasted 
with  the  north-southerly  direction  of 
the   Ghauts,  the   Soliman  and  Bolor 
range,  and  the  Ural  Mountains  which 
divide  Europe  from  Asia.   Approach- 
ing the  great  highways,  over  which 
the  caravans  of  the  East,  from  Uelhi 
and  Lahore,  reach  the  northern  marts 
of   Samarcand,   Bokhara,   and  Oren- 
burg, he  opens  to  us  the  most  striking 
vistas  of  the  early  communication  be- 
tween the  Aryan  civilization  and  the 
Western   lands    lying    then    in    the 
darkness  of  savage  life.     He  inquired 
also  into  the  course  of  the  old  Oxus, 
I  and    the   former    channels    between 
I  Lake  Aral  and  the  Caspian  Sea.    The 
j  level  of  that  great  inland   salt  lake, 
about  two  or  three  hundred  feet  lower 
j  than  the  surface  of  the  sea,  suggested 
to  him  its  former  communication  with 
the  Arctic  Ocean,  when  the  Steppes 
of  the  Kirghis  formed  an   open  gulf 
I  and  the  northern  Avaters  poured  over 
I  those    extensive    plains.     After    ex- 
I  amining     the     German     settlements 
I  about  the  Caspian  Sea,  he  returned  to 
I  St.  Petersburg  by  way  of  Orenburg 
and  Moscow. 

I      Tlie  scientific  results  of  this  journey 
I  are  recorded  in  two   separate  works, 
j  the  first  of  which,  under  the  title  of 
'Asiatic  Fragments  of  Climatology 
!  and  Geology,"  is   chiefly   devoted   to 
[  an  account  of  the  inland  volcanoes 
Avhich  he  had  had  an    opportunity  of 
;  studying   during  this   journey.     He 
had  now  examined  the  volcanic  phe- 
\  nomena   upon   three   continents,  and 
had  gained  an  insight  more  penetrat- 
ing and  more  comprehensive  than  was 
possessed  by  any  other  geologist  into 
their   deep   connection  with   all   the 
changes    our  globe   has    undergone. 
Volcanoes  were    no  longer    to   him 
mere  local  manifestations  of  a  limited 
focus  of  eruption  ;  he  perceived  their 
relation  to  earthquakes  and  to  all  the 
phenomena   coincident  with  the  for- 
mation  of    the    inequalities    of    the 
earth's  surface. 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[343]  39 


The  contrast  between  the  Siberian 
winter  and  the  great  fertility  of  the 
neighborhood  of  Astracan,  where  he 
found  the  finest  vineyards  he  had  ever 
seen,  led  him  to  consider  anew  the 
causes  of  the  irregularities  of  tem- 
j'eiature  under  corresponding  lati- 
tudes, and  thus  to  enlarge  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  isothermal  lines,  which  he 
had  first  sketched  in  his  younger 
years,  and  the  rationale  of  which  he 
now  clearly  set  forth.  In  one  com- 
prehensive view  he  showed  the  con 
uectiou  between  the  rotation  of  the 
earth,  the  radiation  of  its  surface,  the 
currents  of  the  ocean,  and  especially 
among  the  latter  the  Gulf  Stream,  in 
their  combined  influence  upon  condi- 
tions of  temperature,  producing  under 
identical  latitudes  such  contrasts  of 
climate  as  exist  between  Boston, 
Madrid,  Naples,  Constantinople,  Tif 
lis  on  the  Caucasus,  Hakodadi  in 
Japan,  and  that  part  of  our  own 
coast  in  California,  where  stands  the 
city  which  bears  his  own  venerated 
name. 

The  second  work  relating  to  the 
Asiatic  journey  appeared  under  the 
title  of  ''  Central  Asia,"  being  an  ac- 
count of  his  researches  into  the 
mountain  systems  and  the  climate  of 
that  continent.  The  broadest  gen- 
eralizations relating  to  the  physics  of 
the  globe,  showing  Humboldt's  won- 
derful familiarity  with  all  its  external 
features,  are  liere  introduced  in  a 
short  paper  upon  the  average  eleva- 
tion of  the  continents  above  the  level 
of  the  sea,  as  compared  with  the 
average  depths  of  the  ocean.  La- 
place, the  great  geometer,  had  al- 
ready considered  the  subject ;  but 
Humboldt  brought  to  the  discussion 
an  amount  of  facts  which  showed 
conclusively  that  tlie  })urely  mathe- 
matical consideration  of  the  inquiry, 
as  handled  by  Lai'lace,  had  been 
premature.  Taking  separately  into 
consideration  the  space  occupied  upon 
the  earth's  surface  by  mountain 
ridges  Avith  that  occupied  by  high 
table-lands,  and  the  far  more  ex- 
pensive tracts  of  low  plains,  Hu.m- 
BOLDT  showed  that  the  averanre  eleva- 


tion of  the  earth,  estimated  by  La- 
I'LACE  at  more  than  one  thousand 
metres,  could  in  fact  be  scarcely  one 
third  that  amount, — a  great  deal  less, 
indeed,  than  the  average  depth  of  the 
sea. 

In  1830,  after  his  return  to  Berlin, 
he  was  chosen  as  the  fitting  mes- 
senger from  one  great  nation  to  an- 
other. The  Restoration  which  fol 
lowed  the  downfall  of  Napoleon  had 
been  overturned  by  the  July  revolu- 
tion, and  Humboldt  who  had  lived 
through  the  glory  of  the  Republic 
and  the  most  brilliant  days  of  the 
Empire  was  appointed  by  the  King 
of  Prussia  to  carry  an  official  greeting 
to  Louis  Philippe  and  the  new  dy- 
nasty. He  had  indeed  the  most 
friendly  relations  with  the  Orleans 
family,  and  was,  from  private  as  well 
as  public  considerations,  a  suitable 
ambassador  on  this  occasion. 

Paris  had  greatly  changed  since 
his  return  from  his  first  great  journey. 
Many  of  those  who  had  made  the 
glory  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  century,  had 
passed  away,  and  a  new  generation 
had  come  up.  Elie  de  Bkaumont, 
DuFRENOY,  the  younger  Brongniart, 
Adrien  de  Jussieu,  Isidore  Geoff - 
ROY,  Milne  Edavards,  Audouin, 
Flourens,  Guillemain,  Pouillet, 
Ddperrey,  Babinet,  Decaisne,  and 
others,  had  risen  to  distinction,  while 
the  older  Ampere,  the  older  Brongni- 
art, Valenciennes,  De  Blainnille, 
Arago  and  Geoffroy  St.-Hilaire, 
had  come  forward  as  leaders  in 
science.  Cuvier,  just  the  age  of 
Humboldt  himself,  was  still  active 
and  ardent  in  research.  His  salon, 
frequented  by  statesmen,  scholars, 
and  artists,  was,  at  the  same  time,  the 
gathering-place  of  all  the  most  orig- 
inal thinkers  in  Paris ;  and  the 
pleasure  of  those  delightful  meetings 
was  unclouded,  for  none  dreamed  how 
soon  they  were  to  end  forever, — how 
soon  that  bright  and  vivid  mind  was 
to  pass  away  from  among  us. 

In  those  days  a  fierce  discussion 
was  carried  on  before  the  Academy 
as  well  as  in  public  lectui'es.    Goethe 


40  [344] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT, 


had  declared  the  unity  of  structure 
in  the  bony  frame  of  all  the  Verte- 
brates, and  had  laid  the  foiandation 
of  the  morphology  of  plants.  These 
new  views  had  awakened  the  interests 
and  passions  of  the  whole  world  of 
science  to  a  degree  hitherto  unknown 
in  her  peaceful  halls.  Cuvikr,  strange 
to  say,  had  taken  ground  in  opposition 
to  Goethe's  views  upon  the  Verte- 
brate type,  while  Geoffrot  St.- 
HiLAiRE,  a  devoted  adherent  of 
Goe'he's  ideas,  had  expressed  his 
convictions  in  words  not  always 
courteous  toward  Cuvier.  The  latter 
had  retorted  with  an  overwhelming 
display  of  special  knowledge,  under 
which  the  brilliant  generalizations  of 
St.-Hilaire  seemed  to  be  crushed. 
Cuvier  was  then  giving  a  course  of 
lectures  in  the  College  de  F'rance  on 
the  history  of  science,  into  which  he 
wove  with  passionate  animation  his 
objections  to  the  new  doctrine.  Hum- 
boldt attended  these  lectures  regular- 
ly, and  I  had  frequently  the  pleasure 
of  sitting  by  his  side  and  being  the 
recipient  of  his  passing  ci-iticism. 
While  he  was  impressed  by  the  ob- 
jections of  the  master-anatomist,  he 
could  not  conceal  his  sympathy  for 
the  conception  of  the  great  poet,  his 
countryman.  Seeing  more  clearly 
than  Cuvier  himself  the  logic  of  his 
investigations,  in  whispered  com- 
ments during  the  lectures,  he  constant- 
ly declared  that  whatever  deficiencies 
the  doctrine  of  unity  might  still  con- 
tain, it  must  be  essentially  true,  and 
Cuvier  ought  to  be  its  e.vpounder  in- 
stead of  its  opponent.  The  great 
French  naturalist  did  not  live  to 
complete  these  lectures,  but  the  view 
expressed  by  his  friend  was  prophetic. 
Cuvier's  own  researches,  especially 
those  bearing  upon  the  characteristics 
of  the  four  different  plans  of  struc- 
ture of  the  animal  kingdom,  have 
helped  to  prove,  in  his  own  despite, 
though  in  a  modified  form,  the  truth 
of  the  doctrine  he  so  bitterly  opposed. 
The  life  which  Humuot-dt  now  led 
was  less  exclusively  that  of  a  student 
than  it  had  been  during  his  former 
Paris  life.     He  was  the  ambassador 


of  a  foreign  court.  His  official  posi- 
tion and  his  rank  in  society,  as  well 
as  his  great  celebrity,  made  him 
everywhere  a  cherished  guest,  and 
HuMBiu.uT  had  the  gift  of  making 
himself  ubiquitous.  He  was  as  famil- 
iar with  the  gossip  of  the  fashionable 
and  dramatic  world  as  with  the 
higher  walks  of  life  and  the  abstruse 
researches  of  science.  He  had  at  this 
time  two  residences  in  Paris, — his 
lodging  at  the  hotel  des  Princes, 
where  he  saw  the  great  world,  and 
his  working-room  in  the  Rue  de  la 
Harpe,  where  he  received  with  less 
formality  his  scientific  friends.  It  is 
with  the  latter  place  I  associate  him ; 
for  there  it  was  my  privilege  to  visit 
him  frequently.  There  he  gave  me 
leave  to  come  to  talk  with  him  about 
my  work  and  consult  him  in  my  dif- 
ficulties. I  am  unwilling  to  speak 
of  myself  on  this  occasion,  and  yet  I 
do  not  know  how  else  I  can  do  justice 
to  one  of  the  most  beautiful  sides  of 
Humboldt's  character.  His  sym- 
pathy for  all  young  students  of  nature 
was  one  of  the  noblest  traits  of  his 
long  life.  It  may  truly  be  said  that 
toward  the  close  of  his  career  there 
was  hardly  one  prominent  or  aspiring 
scientific  man  in  the  world  who  was 
not  under  some  obligation  to  him. 
His  sympathy  touched  not  oidy  the 
work  of  those  in  whom  he  was  in- 
terested, but  extended  also  to  their 
material  wants  and  embarrassments. 
At  this  period  I  was  twenty-four;  he 
was  sixty-two.  I  had  recently  taken 
my  degree  as  Doctor  of  Medicine^nd 
was  struggling  not  only  for  a  scientific 
position,  but  for  the  means  of  exist- 
ence also.  I  have  said  that  he  gave 
me  permission  to  come  as  often  as  I 
pleased  to  his  room,  opening  to  me 
freely  the  inestimable  advantages 
which  intercourse  with  such  a  man 
gave  to  a  young  investigator  like  my- 
self. But  he  did  far  more  than  this. 
Occupied  and  surrounded  as  he  was, 
he  sought  me  out  in  my  own  lodging. 
The  first  visit  he  paid  me  at  my  nar- 
row quarters  in  the  Quartier  Latin, 
where  I  occupied  a  small  room  in  the' 
hotel    du    Jardin    des    Plantes,  was 


DARWIN    AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[345]  41 


characteristic  of  the  man.  After  a 
cordial  greeting,  he  walked  straight 
to  what  was  then  my  library, — a  small 
bookshelf  containing  a  few  classics, 
the  meanest  editions  bought  for  a 
trifle  along  the  quays,  some  works  on 
philosophy  and  histoiy,  chemistry 
and  physics,  his  own  Views  of  Xa- 
ture,  Aristotle's  Zoology,  Linx^eus's 
Systema  Naturae,  in  several  editions, 
Curvier's  Regne  Animal,  and  quite 
a  number  of  manuscript  quartos, 
copies  which,  with  the  assistance  of 
my  bi'Other,  I  had  made  of  works  I 
was  too  poor  to  buy,  though  they  cost 
but  a  few  francs  a  volume.  Most 
conspicuous  of  all  were  twelve  vol- 
umes of  the  new  German  Oyclopadia 
presented  to  me  by  the  publisher.  I 
shall  never  forget,  after  his  look  of 
mingled  interest  and  surprise  at  my 
little  collection,  his  half  sarcastic 
question  as  he  pounced  upon  the  great 
Encyclopaedia, — "  Was  machen  Sie 
denn  mit  dieser  EselshriXckeV  What 
are  you  doing  with  this  ass's  bridge? 
— the  somewhat  contemptuous  name 
given  in  Germany  to  similar  compila- 
tions. "I  have  not  had  time,"  I 
said,  "to  study  the  original  sources  of 
learning,  and  I  need  a  prompt  and 
easy  answer  to  a  thousand  questions  I 
have  as  yet  no  other  means  of  solv- 
ing." 

It  was  no  doubt  apparent  to  him 
that  I  was  not  over  familiar  with  the 
good  things  of  this  world,  for  I  shortly 
afterward  received  an  invitation  to 
meet  him  at  six  o'clock  in  the  Galerie 
vitree  of  the  Palais  Royal,  whence  he 
led  me  into  one  of  those  restaurants, 
the  tempting  windows  of  which  I 
had  occasionally  passed  by.  When 
we  were  seated,  he  half  laughingly, 
half  inquiringly  asked  me  whether  I 
would  order  the  dinner.  I  declined 
the  invitation,  saying  that  we  should 
fare  better  if  he  would  take  the 
trouble.  And  for  three  hours,  Avhich 
passed  like  a  dream,  I  had  him  all  to 
myself.  How  he  examined  me,  and 
how  much  I  learned  in  that  short 
time !  How  to  work,  what  to  do, 
arid  what  to  avoid ;  how  to  live  ;  how 
to  distribute  my  time  ;  what  methods 


of  study  to  pursue, — these  were  the 
things  of  which  he  talked  to  rae  on 
that  delightful  evening.  I  do  not 
mention  this  trivial  incident  without 
feeling  that  it  may  seem  too  familiar 
for  the  occasion ;  nor  should  I  give 
it  at  all,  except  that  it  shows  the 
sweetness  and  kindliness  of  Hu.h- 
boldt's  nature.  It  was  not  enough 
for  him  to  cheer  and  stimulate  the 
student ;  he  cared  also  to  give  a  rare 
indulgence  to  a  young  man  who  could 
allow  himself  few  luxuries. 

The  last  period  of  his  life  was  spent 
in  Berlin,  and  while  there  to  the  end 
of  his  long  and  laborious  career  he 
was  engaged  with  the  publication  of 
his  Cosmos,  and  also  in  editing  the 
great  work,  on  the  Kavi  language, 
left  by  his  brother  William,  who 
died  in  1835.  Besides  these  import- 
ant undertakings,  he  was  unceasingly 
engaged  in  fostering  magnetic  observ- 
ations and  the  establishment  of  mag- 
netic observatories.  He  likewise  felt 
a  lively  interest  in  the  proposed  inter- 
oceanic  Canal  between  the  Atlantic 
and  Pacific  Oceans,  the  lines  for 
which  he  had  carefully  considered  in 
earlier  years.  Surrounded  by  loving 
and  admiring  friends,  covered  with 
honors  and  distinctions,  these  days 
were  rich  in  peaceful  enjoyment. 

One  of  the  most  prominent  features 
of  Humboldt's  mind,  as  philosopher 
and  student  of  nature,  consists  in  the 
keenness  with  which  he  perceives  the 
most  remote  relations  of  the  phenom- 
ena under  consideration,  and  the 
felicity  with  which  he  combines  his 
facts  so  as  to  draw  the  most  com- 
prehensive pictures.  This  faculty  is 
more  particularly  exhibited  in  the 
Cosmos,  the  crowning  efifort  of  his  ma- 
ture life.  With  a  grasp  transcending 
the  most  profound  generalizations  of 
the  philosophers  of  all  ages,  he  draws 
at  first  in  broad  outlines  a  sketch  of 
the  whole  Universe.  With  an  eye 
sharpened  by  the  most  improved  in- 
struments of  the  Observatory,  and  ex- 
alted by  the  experience  of  all  his 
predecessors,  he  penetrates  into  the 
remotest  recesses  of  space,  to  seek  for 
the   faintest   ray   of  light  that  may 


42  [346] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


furnish  any  information  concerning 
the  expanse  of  the  heavenly  vault  and 
the  age  of  the  celestial  bodies.  He 
thus  makes  the  rapidity  with  which 
light  is  propagated  a  measure  of  the 
distance  which  separates  the  visible 
parts  of  the  whole  system  from  one 
another,  as  well  as  a  means  of  ap- 
proximately estimating  the  duration 
of  their  existence.  He  next  con- 
siders the  various  appearances  of  the 
celestial  bodies,  the  different  kinds  of 
nebuUe,  their  form  and  relations  to 
one  another  and  to  the  so-called  fixed 
stars ;  describes  in  graphic  and  fas- 
cinating language  ttie  landscape-like 
loveliness  of  their  combinations  in  the 
Milky-Way  and  the  various  con- 
stellations ;  discusses  the  nature  of 
the  doublestars,  and,  gradually  ap- 
proaching our  own  system  by  a  com- 
parison of  our  sun  to  other  suns,  rises, 
by  a  sublime  effort  of  the  imagina- 
tion, to  a  conception  of  the  form  of 
their  united  systems  in  space.  In  the 
description  of  our  solar  system  one 
might  have  expected  an  exposition 
similar  to  the  methods  adopted  by 
astronomers ;  but  the  object  of  our 
great  physicist  is  not  to  write  a  syn- 
opsis of  Astronomy.  He  plunges 
without  hesitation  into  the  earliest 
history  of  the  formation  of  our  earth, 
the  better  to  illustrate  the  relations  to 
one  another  of  the  sun  and  the  planets 
with  their  satellites,  the  comets,  and 
the  hosts  of  meteors  of  all  kinds  which 
come  flashing,  like  luminous  showers, 
through  the  atmosphere.  Our  globe 
is  reviewed  in  its  turn.  First,  its 
structure,  the  density  of  its  mass,  in 
the  estimation  of  which  the  oscilla- 
tions of  the  pendulum  become  a  plum- 
met-line with  which  to  fathom  the 
inapproachable  deep ;  then  the  vol- 
canoes are  made  to  reveal  the  ever- 
lasting conflict  between  the  interior 
caldrons  of  melted  materials  and  the 
consolidation  of  the  ruilied  surface ; 
the  distribution  of  heat  and  light,  the 
climates,  as  depending  upon  the  in 
equalities  of  form  and  relief,  the  cur- 
rents of  the  ocean,  as  modifying  the 
temperature,  the  magnetic  phenom- 
ena, the  aurora  boreaUs,  the  shooting 


stars,  etc.,  are  discussed  in  turn.  The 
changes  which  our  globe  has  under- 
gone in  the  course  of  ages  aie  next 
described:  how  the  lands  gradually 
rose  above  the  level  of  the  sea  :  how 
they  first  formed  disconnected  archi- 
pelagos ;  how  mountains  grew  up  in 
succession,  and  their  relative  age  ;  the 
form  and  extent  of  successively  larger 
continental  islands,  their  plants  and 
animals; — nothing  escaped  his  atten- 
tion ;  everything  is  represented  in  its 
true  place  and  relation  to  the  whole. 
Especially  attractive  are  his  delinea- 
tions of  the  distribution  of  plants  and 
animals  upon  the  present  surface  of 
the  earth,  of  which  an  account  has 
already  been  given. 

This  mode  of  treating  his  subjects, 
emphatically  his  own,  has  led  many 
specialists  to  underrate  Humboldt's 
familiarity  with  different  branches  of 
science  ;  as  if  knowledge  could  only 
be  recorded  in  pedantic  forms  and  a 
set  phraseology. 

But  Humboldt  is  not  only  an  ob- 
server, not  only  a  physicist,  a  geog- 
rapher, a  geologist  of  matchless 
power  and  erudition,  he  knows  that 
nature  has  its  attraction  for  the  soul 
of  man  ;  that,  however  uncultivated, 
man  is  impressed  by  the  great  phe- 
nomena amid  which  he  lives;  that  he 
is  dependent  for  his  comforts  and  the 
progress  of  civilization  upon  the  world 
that  surrounds  him  This  leads  to  an 
appreciative  analysis  of  the  enjoyment 
derived  from  the  contemplation  of  na- 
ture, and  to  considerations  of  the 
highest  order  respecting  the  influence 
which  natural  highways  have  had 
upon  the  races  of  men,  in  their  distri- 
bution upon  the  whole  surface  of  the 
globe. 

In  speaking  of  his  later  days  I  can- 
not omit  some  allusion  to  a  painful 
fact  connected  with  his  residence  at 
Berlin.  The  publication  of  a  private 
correspondence  between  Varnhagex 
VON  Ense  and  Humboldt  has  led  to 
many  unfriendly  criticisms  upon  the 
latter.  He  has  been  blamed  for 
holding  his  place  at  court,  while,  in 
private,  he  criticised  and  even  satirized 
severely   everything   connected  with 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[347]  43 


it.  It  is  not  easy  to  place  one's  self 
in  the  right  point  of  view  with  ref- 
erence to  these  conlidential  letters. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  Hum- 
boldt was  a  Republican  at  heart. 
His  most  intimate  friends,  from 
FoRSTER,  in  his  early  youth,  to 
Arago,  in  his  mature  years,  were 
ardent  Republicans.  He  shared  their 
enthusiasm  for  the  establishment  of 
self-government  among  men.  An 
anecdote  preserved  to  us  by  Lieber 
shows  that  he  did  not  conceal  his 
sympathies,  even  before  the  King 
who  honoi-ed  him  so  highly.  Lieber, 
who  was  present  at  the  conversation, 
gives  the  following  account  of  it : 
"The  King  of  Prussia,  Humboldt, 
and  NiEBUHR  were  talking  of  ihe 
affairs  of  the  day,  and  the  latter  spoke 
in  no  flattering  terms  of  the  political 
views  and  antecedents  of  Arago,  who, 
it  is  well-known,  was  a  very  advanced 
Republican  of  the  Galilean  School,  an 
uncomprimising  French  democrat. 
Frederic  William  the  Third  simply 
abominated  Republicanism  ;  yet  when 
Niebuhr  had  finished,  Humboldt 
said  with  a  sweetness  which  I  vividly 
remember:  "Still  this  monster  is  the 
dearest  friend  I  have  in  France." 

Can  we,  therefore,  be  surprised,  that 
in  his  confidential  letters  to  a  sym- 
pathizing friend,  he  should  not  refrain 
from  expressing  his  dislike  of  the 
petty  intrigues  and  low  sentiments 
which  he  met  among  courtiers.  I  re- 
ceived, myself,  a  letter  from  Hum- 
ttOLDT,  written  in  the  days  when  the 
reactionary  movements  were  at  their 
height  in  Prussia,  in  which,  in  a  strain 
of  deep  sadness  and  despondency,  he 
expresses  his  regret  at  the  turn  po- 
litical affairs  had  taken  in  Europe, 
and  his  disappointment  at  the  failure 
of  those  aspirations  for  freedom  with 
which  he  had  felt  the  deepest  sym- 
pathy in  his  youth.  We  may  wish 
that  this  great  man  had  been  wholly 
consistent,  that  no  shadow  had  rested 
upon  the  loyalty  of  his  character,  tluit 
he  had  not  accepted  the  friendship 
and  affection  of  a  King  whose  court 
he  did  not  respect  and  whose  weak- 
nesses  he   keenly  felt.     But    let    us 


remember  that  his  official  station 
there  gave  him  the  means  of  in- 
fluencing culture  and  education  in  his 
native  country  in  a  way  which  he 
could  not  otherwise  have  done,  and 
that  in  this  respect  he  made  the 
noblest  use  of  his  position.  His  sym- 
jjathy  with  the  oppressed  in  every  land 
was  profound.  We  see  it  in  his  feel- 
ing for  the  aborigines  in  South  Amer- 
ica, in  his  abhorrence  of  slavery.  I 
believe  that  he  would  have  experien- 
ced one  of  the  purest  and  deepest 
joys  of  his  life  had  he  lived  to  hear  of 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  United 
States.  His  dislike  of  all  subserviency 
and  flattery,  whether  toward  himself 
or  others,  was  always  openly  ex- 
pressed, and  was  unquestionably  gen- 
uine. 

The  philosophical  views  of  Hum- 
boldt, his  position  with  reference  to 
the  gravest  and  most  important 
questions  concerning  man's  destiny, 
and  the  origin  of  all  things,  have  been 
often  discussed,  and  the  most  op- 
posite opinions  have  been  expressed 
respecting  them  by  men  who  seem 
equally  competent  to  appreciate  the 
meaning  of  his  writings.  The  modern 
school  of  Atheists  claims  liim  as  their 
leader ;  as  such  we  find  him  represent- 
ed by  Burmeister  in  his  scientific 
letters.  Others  bring  forward  his 
sympathy  with  Christian  culture  as 
evidence  of  his  adherence  to  Chi'is- 
tianity  in  his  broadest  sense.  It  is 
difficult  to  find  in  Humboldt's  own 
writings  any  clew  to  the  exact  nature 
of  his  convictions.  He  had  too  great 
regard  for  truth,  and  he  knew  too  well 
the  Aryan  origin  of  the  traditions 
collected  by  the  Jews,  to  give  his 
countenance  to  any  creed  based  upon 
them  Indeed,  it  was  one  of  his 
aims  to  free  our  civilization  from  the 
pressure  of  Jewish  tradition  ;  but  it  is 
impossible  to  become  familiar  with  his 
writings  without  feeling  that,  if  Hum- 
boldt was  not  a  believer,  he  was  no 
scoffer.  A  reverential  spirit  for  every- 
thing great  and  good  breaths  through 
all  his  pages.  Like  atruephiloso])her, 
he  knew  that  the  time  had  not  yet 
come  for  a  scientific  investigation  in- 


44  [348] 


DARWIN   AND    HUMBOL 


.k. 


to  the  origin  of  all  things.  Before  < 
he  attempted  to  discuss  the  direct 
action  of  a  Creator  in  bringing  about . 
the  present  condition  of  the  Universe,  { 
he  knew  that  the  physical  laws  wliich  j 
govern  the  material  world  must  be  l 
first  understood  ;  that  it  would  be  a ' 
mistake  to  ascribe  to  the  agency  of  a 
Supreme  Power  occurrences  and  phe- 
nomena which  could  be  deduced  from 
the  continued  agency  of  natural 
causes.  Until  some  limit  to  the  action 
of  these  causes  has  been  found,  there 
is  no  place,  in  a  scientfic  discussion, 
as  such,  for  the  consideration  of  the 
intervention  of  a  Creator. 
t  In  the  closing  ])aragraph  of  the  first 
/  volume  of  the  Cosmos  Humboldt 
'  distinctly  objects  to  the  consideration 
of  the  sphere  of  intelligence  in  con- 
nection with  the  study  of  Nature. 
But  the  time  is  fast  approaching,  and 
indeed  some  daring  thinkers  have 
actually  entered  upon  the  question, 
— Where  is  the  line  between  the  in- 
evitable action  of  law  and  the  inter- 
vention of  a  higher  power?  where  is 
the  limit?  And  here  we  find  the 
most  opposite  views  propounded. 
There  are  those  who  affirm  that,  inas- 
much as  force  and  matter  are  fotnid 
to  be  a  sufficient  ground  for  so  many 
physical  phenomena,  we  are  justified 
in  assuming  that  the  whole  universe, 
including  organic  life,  has  no  fuither 
origin.  To  these,  I  venture  to  say, 
HuMiiOi.DT  did  not  belong.  He  had 
too  logical  a  mind  to  assume  that  an 
harmoniously  combined  whole  could 
be  the  result  of  accidental  occurrences. 
In  the  few  instances  where,  in  his 
works,  he  uses  the  name  of  God,  it 
appears  plainly  that  he  believes  in  a 
Creator  as  a  lawgiver  and  primary 
orijirinator  of  all  thingrs..  There  are 
X  two  passages  ni  his  writings  especially 
significant  in  this  respect.  In  the 
second  volume  of  the  Cosmos,  when 
speaking  of  the  impression  man  re- 
ceives from  the  contemplation  of  the 
physical  world,  he  calls  nature  God's 
majestic  realm, — "  Gottes  erhabenes 
Reich.'''  In  his  allusion  to  the  fear 
ful  catastrophe  of  Carracas,  destroyed 
by  an  earthquake  in  1812,  the  critical 


inquirer  may  even  infer  that  HtJM- 
BOLrx  believed  in  a  special  Provi- 
dence. For  he  says  with  much  feel- 
ing :  "  Our  friends  are  no  more,  the 
house  we  lived  in  is  a  pile  of  ruins ; 
the  city  I  have  described  no  longer 
exists.  The  day  had  been  very  hot, 
the  air  was  calm,  the  sky  without  a 
cloud.  It  was  Holy  Thursday  ;  the 
people  were  mostly  assembled  in  the 
churches.  Nothing  seemed  to  fore- 
shadow the  threatening  misfortune. 
Suddenly,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, the  bells  which  were  s- truck 
mute  that  day  began  to  toll.  It  was 
the  hand  of  God,  and  not  the  hand  of 
man,  which  rang  that  funeral  dirge." 
In  his  own  words :  "  Es  war  Gottes, 
nicht  Menschenhand,  die  hier  znm 
Grabgeldute  zxoangy 

One  word  more  before  I  close.  I 
have  appeared  before  you  as  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  Boston  Natural 
History  Society.  It  was  their  pro- 
position to  celebrate  this  memorable 
anniversary.  I  feel  grateful  for  their 
invitation,  for  the  honor  they  have 
done  me.  I  feel  still  more  grateful 
for  the  generous  impulse  which  has 
prompted  them  to  connect  a  Hum- 
boldt scholarship,  as  a  memorial  of 
this  occasion,  with  the  Museum  of 
Comparative  Zoology  at  Cambridge. 
I  trust  this  token  of  good-will  may 
only  be  another  expression  of  that 
emulation  for  progress  which  I 
earnestly  hope  may  forever  be  the 
only  rivarly  between  these  kindred 
institutions  and  their  younger  sister 
in  Salem.  We  have  all  a  great  task 
to  perform.  It  should  be  our  effort, 
as  far  as  it  lies  in  our  power,  to  raise 
the  standard  of  culture  of  our  people, 
as  Humboldt  has  elevated  tkat  of  the 
world.  May  the  community  at  large 
feel  Avith  equal  keenness  the  imi  ort- 
j  auce  of  each  step  now  taken  for  the 
'  expansion,  in  every  direction,  of  all 
the  means  of  the  highest  culture. 
j  The  physical  suffering  of  humanity, 
the  wants  of  the  poor,  the  craving  of 
I  the  hungry  and  naked,  appeal  to  the 
I  sympathy  of  every  one  who  has  a 
■  human  heart.  But  there  are  neces- 
'  sities   which   only  the  destitute  stu- 


DARWIN    AND    HUMBOLDT. 


[349]  45 


dent  knows ;  there  is  a  hunger  and 
thirst  which  only  the  highest  charity 
can  understand  and  relieve,  and  on 
this  solemn  occasion  let  me  say  that 
every  dollar  given  for  higher  educa- 
tion, in  whatever  special  department 
of  knowledge,  is  likely  to  have  a 
greater  influence  upon  the  future  char- 
acter of  our  nation  than  even  the 
thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
and  millions  which  have  already  been 
spent  and  are  daily  spending  to  raise 
the  many  to  matei'ial  ease  and  com- 
fort. 

In  the  hope  of  this  coming  golden 
age,  let  us  rejoice  together  that  Hum- 
boldt's name  will  be  permanci  tly 
connected  with  education  and  learning 
in  this  country,  with  the  prospects  and 
institutions  of  which  he  felt  so  deep 
and  so  affectionate  a  sympathy. 


At  the  Evening  Reception  which  followed 
the  Memorial  Address,  Professor  Frederic 
H.  Hedge,  of  Harvard  University,  spoke  as 
follows: 

Mr.  Chairman — It  is  hard  gleaning 
in  a  field  in  which  Agassiz  has  been 
with  his  sickle.  But  since  you  call 
upon  me,  I  will  say  that  the  thing 
which  most  impressed  me,  as  I  listened 
to  the  discourse  this  afternoon,  was 
the  psychological  marvel  of  such  a  na- 
ture as  Humboldt's,  and  the  illustra- 
tion it  affords  of  the  capabilities  of 
the  human  mind.  Here  was  a  man 
whose  inappeasable  greed  of  knowl- 
edge had  appropriated  all  the  science 
of  his  time,  who  knew  all  that  was 
known  in  his  day  of  things  below  and 
things  above.  The  word  '  Cosmos,^/ 
the  title  he  gave  to  his  immortal 
work,  is  an  apt  <lesignation  of  the 
mind  of  the  author, — a  mind  in  which 
the  universe  mirrored  itself  in  all  its 
vastness  and  all  its  minuteness,  with 
its  infinitely  great  and  its  no  less 
amazing  infinitely  little.  Where 
shall  we  look  for  the  parallel  and  peer 
of  such  a  mind  ?  To  find  his  match 
we  have  to  go  back  two  thousand 
years.  We  cannot  stop  at  the  name 
of  Laplace  or  of  Buffon;  these 
men  were  great  in  single  provinces  of 
science,  but  IlrMnoLDT  w^  great   in 


all.  We  cannot  stop  at  Newton  or 
Leibnitz,  though  Newton  seems  to 
have  gravitated  with  a  more  absolute 
aplomb  to  the  truth  of  fact,  and 
though  Leibnitz  pierced  with  a  finer 
aperou  to  the  heart  of  things.  We 
cannot  stop  at  Bacon,  whose  merit  is 
not  to  have  found,  nor  even  to  have 
sought  with  sincerity,  but  only  to 
have  taught  men  what  and  how  to 
seek.  We  cannot  stop  till  we  come 
to  Aristotle.  And  here  we  have  an 
even  parallel.  Between  Hmboldt  and 
Aristotle  there  are,  it  seems  to  rae, 
some  points  of  striking  resemblance. 
Both  of  these  sages  mastered  and  ex- 
tendad  the  science  of  their  time, — 
with  this  difference  in  favor  of  the 
Greek,  that  he  explored  the  realm  of 
ideas  as  well  as  of  things  ;  with  this 
difference  in  favor  of  the  German, 
that  the  science  of  things  and  their 
relations  —  cosmic  science  —  was  a 
thousand-fold  more  complex  and  dif- 
ficult in  the  nineteenth  century  of  the 
Christian  era  than  in  the  fourth  of 
the  ante-Christian.  Both  were  fortu- 
nate in  being  partakers  of  the  recent 
stimuolus  given  by  a  great  philosophic 
movement, — that  of  Socrates  in  the 
one  case,  in  the  other  that  of  Kant. 
]3oth  were  contemporaries  of  great 
world-conquerors  and  shared  the  im- 
pulse imparted  to  their  time, — the 
one  by  Alexander,  the  other  by  Na- 
poleon the  first. 

Dante  called  Aristotle  "  ihnaestro 
di.  color'  che  sanno,^^ — master  among 
them  that  know.  And  what  better 
title  can  be  conferred  upon  Hum- 
boldt? Master  among  them  that 
know, — the  master  savant 

Another  thing  which  fills  my  soul 
with  profound  admiration  when  I 
think  of  Humboldt  is  the  heroism  of 
his  life, — a  life  which  exceeded  in 
breadth  as  well  as  in  length  the  ordi- 
nary limits  of  mortality.  I  admire 
his  loyal  devotion  to  the  single  aim  of 
extending  the  area  of  the  human 
mind.  I  admire  the  indomitable  en- 
terprise which  ransacked  the  globe 
in  search  of  materials  with  which  to 
build  his  monumental  Cosmos  I 
admire  no  less  the  indefatiiicable  in- 


46  [360] 


DARWIN    AND    HUMBOLDT. 


dustry  which  methodized  and  shaped 
those  materials  for  after  ages.  A 
new  standard  of  the  possibilities  of  a 
single  life  is  given  in  what  he  was 
and  V,  hat  he  did.  There  was  no  sen- 
escence in  his  experience.  He  passed 
away  in  the  midst  of  tasks  which  the 
noon  of  his  life  bequeathed  to  its  even- 
ing, and  which  the  evening  did  not 
seek  to  escape.  And  when  he  died, 
it  seemed  as  if  the  civilized  world, 
from  the  Himalaya  to  the  Andes, 
sighed  in  sympathy  Avith  the  going 
down  of  a  man  Avho  carried  a  universe 
in  the  lobes  of  his  brain,  and  who 
counted  anally  and  a  friend  wherever 
nature  hid  a  studedent  or  science  a 
home. 

One  thing  more.  The  professor 
has  told  us  of  t^e  service  which  Hum- 
boldt rendered  to  Inirnauity  by  free- 
ing men  from  the  pressure  of  Jew- 
ish tradition.  I  accept  the  state 
ment.  From  ail  that  was  puerile  and 
inadequate  in  Jewish  or  Jew-Christian 
theology  he  was  free  himself,  and 
helped  to  make  others  free.  But  the 
central  truth  of  Judaism,  the  truth  of 
Semitic  monotheism,  was  as  true  to 
him  as  to  any  before  or  since.  An  im- 
pression went  abroad  at  the  time  of 
his  death  that  Humboldt  was  an  athe- 
ist. We  all  know  how  loosely,  how 
unthinkingly,  that  term  is  applied. 
That  he  did  not  receive  the  anthro- 
pomorphism of  the  conception  I  can 
well  suppose.  But  that  he  rejected 
the  idea  of  a  conscious  intelligence  at 
the  heart  of  the  world — that  intelli- 
gence which  all  his  life  was  spent  in 
tracing — nothing  shall  convince  me, 
not  even  an  unguarded  saying  of  his 
own.  For  I  am  persuaded  that  with- 
out the  belief  in  such  an  Intelligence, 
and  a  purpose  and  a  method  corres- 
ponding therewith,  he  would  not  have 
had  the  heart  to  prosecute  his  in- 
quiries. Forwliat  use  or  instruction, 
or  what  satisfaction  would  there  be  in 


I  observing  and  classifying  material 
I  phenomena,  if  those  phenomena  rep- 
resented no  order  and  obeyed  no  law? 
And  when  we  say  "Order,"  Mr. 
Chairman,  and  when  we  say  "  Law," 
we  say  God.  And  Avhen  we  affirm 
the  constancy  of  that  order  and  the 
certainty  of  that  law,  we  bear  witness 
of  one  at  least  of  the  attributes  of 
Deity, — his  unchangeable  veracity. 
Those  stated  processes  Avhich  make 
the  life  of  nature  and  which  Humt 
BOLDT  so  loved  to  note, — the  stars  in 
their  course,  the  ever-recurring  phases 
of  earth  and  sky,  precession  of  equin- 
oxes, succession  of  seasons,  gravita- 
tion, magnetism, — these  are  Nature's 
comment  on  the  text  of  the  Spirit, 
"  God  is  true."  And  when  Humboldt 
applied  the  methods  he  had  learned 
in  academic  Europe  and  the  laAvs 
announced  by  students  of  nature  in 
other  centuries, — applied  these  to 
the  measurement  of  mountains  on  the 
other  side  of  the  globe,  knowing  them 
to  be  as  apt  and  applicable  then  as  in 
all  past  time,  he  unwittingly  con- 
fessed his  belief  in  a  God  whose 
••  truth  endureth  through  all  genera- 
tions." 

But  if,  after  all,  it  should  prove  to 
be  the  case — if  that  were  possible 
which  I  deny — tliat  the  greatest  sci- 
entist of  modern  time,  in  his  search 
after  truth,  had  missed  the  first  and 
most  essential  of  all  truths, — the  being 
of  God,— what  then?  Why  then  I 
should  say  that  the  man  himself  is  the 
most  convincing  proof  of  the  truth  he 
missed.  I  should  feel  that  the  marvel 
of  such  a  mind,  a  Avonder  surpassing 
any  of  those  it  explored,  must  have 
had  its  adequate  cause ;  that  the  finite 
intelligence  which  looked  creation 
through  presupposes  an  infinite  In- 
telligence as  its  origin  and  grcund. 
The  highest  mortal  can  only  be  ex- 
plained as  the  product  of  a  more  than 
mortal  power. 


CONTENTS. 


I. 
II. 

F 

V. 
VI. 

I. 
11. 


CHARLES     DARWIN. 
Introductory  Notice.     By  T.  H.  Huxley,  F.R.S. 
Life  and  Character.     By  G.  J.  Romanes,  F.R.S. 
Work  in  Geology.     By  Archibald  Geikie,  F.R.S. 
Work  in  Botany.     By  W.  T.  Thiselton  Dyer,  F.R.S. 
Work  in  Zoology.     By  G.  J.  Romanes,  F.R.S.     . 
Work  in  Psychology.     By  the  Same. 


ALEXANDER  VON  HUMBOLDT. 
Centennial  Address.     By  Louis  Agassiz. 
Remarks  by  Prof.  Frederic   H.    Hedge. 


PAGES. 

I 


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21 


27 

45 


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